GIFT  OF 
/ 1 ///'a  » I      I  a  LI  /or 


Stigmas. — Last  publ  shed  record  of  this  inheritance  was  in 
the  XII  century,  the  stigmas  upon  the  person  of  Saint  Francis 
of  Assizi,  Italy.  There  arc  on  my  body  the  same  marks,  in 
the  locations  that  the  Roman  cross  marks  at  its  cruel  execu- 
tions. A  scabby  sore  is  on  my  right  breast,  near  the  nipple 
— always  open.  On  the  back  of  each  hand,  in  the  center,  are 
breaking  sores ;  on  the  inside  of  each  hand  are  gristly  lumps ; 
on  my  back,  and  opposite  the  front  or  opening  sore,  is  a  lump 
larger  than  an  egg,  resembling  a  fatty  tumor  ,at  the  left  side 
of  and  near  the  backbone.  In  line  between  the  front  and 
rear  sore's  my  bowels  have  always  felt  and  acted  as  partially 
paralyzed.  Feet  not  pierced ;  the  shinbone  has  skin  discolored. 

WM.  TAYLOR,  Age  83. 


PHYSICAL  LIFE 

AND 

HIGHER  LIGHT 

Written  for  the 
Thoughtful 


WILLIAM  TAYLOR 


A.  C.  Humphry,  Printer  for  the  Author 
117  Stimson  Bldg.,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 


Copyright,  1922 
by 
Taylor 


L  teto      IGu 


PREFACE 

In  a  measure,  extent  of  thoughts  with  us  is  very 
limited.  Blundering  is  the  name  to  be  applied  for 
those  who  defining  for  the  common  sense  are  slack. 
"I  thought"  means  very  little.  Artemas  Ward  lec- 
turing the  spendthrift  said,  "It  would  be  money  in 
your  pocket  if  you'd  never  been  born!" 

When  earliest  of  mankind  selected  one  only  of  the 
polarities  of  being,  the  male,  as  leader,  as  god  or  chief, 
a  costly  mistake  was  made;  it  made  the  tyrant,  the 
slave-driver,  the  aristocrat.  This  blunder  made  War. 

Our  United  States  had  added  to  its  formation,  one 
state  inclusive,  Pennsylvania,  that  had  the  humble  peo- 
ple called  Quakers,  who  would  not  call  any  man 
master;  and  no  woman  of  this  sect  (formed  in  Eng- 
land) had  for  husband  a  master.  The  keynote  with 
them  was  Equality.  This  feature  in  the  population  is 
bound  to  grow,  so  today  we  have  a  free  and  enlight- 
ened country,  and  it  stands  foremost  of  all  the  nations 
of  earth.  No  nation,  says  Lincoln,  (of  Quaker  de- 
scent), can  endure,  half  slave  and  half  free.  He  might 
have  added,  no  true  marriage  is  made  half  slave  and 
half  free.  Want  of  thought  is  a  bad  basis,  if  you 
ever  want  to  care  for  any  creature  we  call  domestic 
animal;  you  must  give  it  soul  equality,  as  you  best 
understand  freedom  in  life. 

All  religion  was  founded -upon  the  autocratic  basis 
of  having  God  or  gods  to  rule.  "The  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you,"  so  there  is  no  truth  in  slavery  if 
life  with  both  predominate — the  positive  and  negative 
polarities.  Franklin  and  Edison  in  curbing  the  elec- 

517332 


PREFACE 

trie  fluid,  very  sensibly  used  both  the  positive  and 
negative,  in  other  terms,  he  and  she.  Either  element 
to  act  alone  is  unthinkable. 

This  belief  is  that  upon  which  I  base  the  rebirth 
theory,  advocated  in  this  work. 

If  "no  more  war/'  we  must  have  no  more  gods  of 
the  nations,  conquerors. 

As  mistakes  occur  in  all  early  life,  so  recorded  in 
bibles  and  scriptures  for  the  less  enlightened,  we 
should  strive  to  turn  ahead  to  the  known  principles  of 
that  great  Hebrew  prophet,  Jesus — who  was  the  first 
to  startle  the  world  for  higher  principles  in  mankind. 
Plato,  the  Grecian  philosopher  advocated  also  for  peo- 
ples of  enlightened  states  to  follow  his  teachings  in 
The  Republic. 

No  human  records  are  long  kept.  Palmyra  of  the 
ancients  had  a  throng  in  life.  The  Grecian  unknown 
god  and  the  others  are  not  now  named.  But  the 
despised  slave  on  the  path,  sings,  "Carry  me  back  to 
old  Virginia/'  meaning  to  his  old  home.  An  equally 
lasting  thing  is  the  stigma,  a  flesh  mark  that  lasts 
through  all  Christian  times.  So  books  and  creeds — 
kept  alive  in  only  the  mind's  eye,  the  soul.  Jehovah 
was  a  big  name  long  ago,  yet  is  passing  with  idolatries 
and  scriptures.  Cain  killing  Abel  was  a  soul  offense, 
to  last  as  murder  may  last.  The  coming  Age  of  Com- 
passion may  glimpse  that  promised  Age  of  Heaven ! 


Physical  Life  and  Higher  LigKt 

BOOK  ONE 

This  is  an  age  of  Change.  The  past,  we  hope,  ends 
the  long  era  of  wars,  and  for  the  first  time  in  modern 
history  peace  conferences  of  the  nations  have  produced 
general  rejoicing. 

"War  is  Hell,"  was  an  expression  of  General  Sher- 
man, in  1865.  As  the  Great  Prophet,  Jesus,  2000 
years  ago,  based  His  work  upon  peace  hopes — then  so 
unpromising,  let  the  prayers,  the  hopes  ever  since,  of 
countless  millions  of  peoples  everywhere,  be  of  ac- 
count. Prayers  for  peace  are  heard  and  may  be  an- 
swered from  on  High!  Very  few  with  love  for  our 
humanity  but  can  incline  to  join  a  general  chorus — 
"May  the  Prince  of  Peace  be  born  again — to  meet  less 
brutality  and  greater  general  intelligence/' 

There  is  no  place  like  home.  Oldest  of  our  Chris- 
tian sects,  and  we  have  many,  worship  the  mother,  as 
is  proper  for  every  one  of  us.  As  to  the  father,  Jesus, 
the  Divine  One,  recognized  this  as  highest — in  names 
—Our  Father. 

We  of  to-day  mix  the  clean  with  the  unclean,  the 
man  of  blood,  soldier,  thief,  conqueror,  with  the  right- 
eous, the  divine.  As  Adam  was  scourged,  driven  out 
of  the  Garden  of  God,  so  we  must  drive  the  unclean 
out  of  our  society,  or  submit  to  a  weaker  polarity  of 
existence. 

The  kingdom  of  God,  Jesus  said,  was  always  within 
us — whatever  use  you  may  make  of  a  Creator  and 
Preserver.  If  the  starters  of  religions  or  governments 


8  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

have  failed  to  point  out  this  kingdom,  they  made 
calamities  and  failures — this  even  down  to  the  lowest 
savage  tribes  on  earth.  Gentlemen  are  reckoned  our 
highest  type  of  enlightenment,  their  failure  in  duty 
distressing  and  calamitous.  Talk  means  little  to  idol 
worshippers,  more  than  mere  priestly  formality,  so 
remnant  of  this  worship  is  too  prevalent.  Jesus  was 
not  the  graven  image  to  bow  to,  for  that  little  we  know 
of  His  teachings  is  as  real  for  us  as  is  the  nation's 
government. 

Beauty— a  living  presence  of  the  Earth, 
Surpassing  the  most  fair  ideal  forms 
Which  craft  or  delicate  spirits  hath  composed 
From  Earth's  materials,  waits  upon  my  steps: 
Pitches  her  tents  before  me  as  I  move. 
An  hourly  neighbor,  Paradise,  and  groves 
Elysian,  Fortunate  Fields — like  those  of  old 
Sought  in  the  Atlantic  Main,  why  should  they  be 
A  history  only  of  departed  things, 
Or  a  mere  fiction  of  what  never  was? 
For  the  discerning  intellect  of  man, 
When  wedded  to  this  goodly  universe 
In  love  and  holy  passion,  shall  find  these 
A  simple  produce  of  the  common  day.  *  *  * 
Such  grateful  haunts  for  growing,  if  I  oft 
Must  turn  elsewhere — to  travel  near  the  tribes 
And  fellowships  of  men,  and  see  ill  sights, 
Maddening  passions  mutually  inflamed;    *  *   * 
Descend,  prophetic  Spirit!  that  inspirest 
The  human  soul  of  universal  earth, 
Dreaming  on  things  to  come :  and  dost  possess 
A  metropolitan  temple  in  the  hearts 
Of  mighty  poets;  upon  me  bestow 
A  gift  of  genuine  insight,  that  my  song 
With  star-like  virtue  in  its  place  may  shine ! 
Shedding  benignnant  influence, — and  secure 
Itself  from  all  malevolent  effect. 

— Wordsworth. 

The  first  great  reformer  was  Jesus  of  Jerusalem. 
But  the  Holy  Land  fanatics  murdered  Him.    He  came, 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT 

as  the  pious  said,  eating  and  drinking  with  the  publi- 
cans and  sinners,  and  the  church  would  have  none  of 
the  New,  the  democratic,  Testament.  War  lords  later 
became  unbearably  oppressive,  Rome  fell,  and  then 
came  a  reaction  in  the  French  Revolution ;  in  England, 
a  Robin  Hood  with  his  "outlaws' '  (the  Lincoln 
Greens)  to  suppress  the  holy  orders — monks,  more  to 
be  feared  than  Darwin's  monkeys!  Governments  in 
both  England  and  France  were  so  tyrannical  that  the 
people  rose  in  their  wrath  and  beheaded  the  kings  of 
both  countries. 

Education  was  accomplishing  its  blessed  work. 
Brave  spirits  were  throwing  off  both  the  religious  and 
church-and-state  tyrannies.  The  Trend  of  Liberty, 
going  mostly  westward,  the  final  downfall  here  of 
oppression  came  with  a  Monroe  Doctrine.  Washing- 
ton's hatchet  cut  the  way  to  free  institutions  on  a  New 
Continent,  and  English  war  lords,  finally  giving  up 
their  cause  (Aristocracy),  in  a  later  day  begged  for 
our  American  sympathies  when  the  most  enlightened 
of  their  powers  made  a  world  war  that  threatened  all 
Europe. 

A  better  educated  Church,  and  less  inclined  to  be 
aristocratic  and  more  content  under  the  mild  govern- 
ment of  the  Lamb  of  God,  is  now  becoming  of  real 
use  to  the  people.  A  better  understanding  of  the 
Blessed  Book  begins  to  guide  all  alike.  Formerly  the 
Bible  was  a  Thing  to  be  worshipped. 

Two  authors,  Virgil  and  Ovid,  have  references  to 
Lethe  and  the  descent  into  Hades,  how  the  souls  were 
there  made  ready  for  reincarnation  and  there  assemble 
on  the  marge  of  the  water  of  life,  in  order  that  they 


10  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

may  partake,  and  then  forget  their  past  life,  thence 
returning  to  the  physical  plane.  Christians  and  peo- 
ples of  other  religions  have  faith  that  they  will  enjoy 
an  after-existence — and  especially  with  those  in  or 
near  the  Old  Home.  It  would  be  a  senseless  thing  to 
combat  such  a  hope.  Jesus  upheld,  I  think,  such  a 
heavenly  vision — beauties  of  the  earth,  reunion  of  the 
risen;  "a  sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground  without 
the  Father's  notice."  "Heaven/'  he  said,  "was  a  place 
of  many  mansions/'  such  as  we  have — the  place  near 
home  upon  the  earth. 

A  CREED 

BY  JOHN  MASEFIELD 

I  hold  that  when  a  person  dies 

His  soul  returns  again  to  earth ; 
Arrayed  in  some  new  flesh-disguise, 

Another  mother  gives  him  birth. 
With  sturdier  limbs  and  brighter  brain 
The  old  soul  takes  the  roads  again. 

Such  is  my  own  belief  and  trust; 

This  hand,  this  hand  that  holds  the  pen, 
Has  many  a  hundred  times  been  dust 

And  turned,  as  dust,  to  dust  again; 
These  eyes  of  mine  have  blinked  and  shone 
In  Thebes,  in  Troy,  in  Babylon. 

All  that  I  rightly  think  or  do, 
Or  make,  or  spoil,  or  bless,  or  blast, 

Is  curse  or  blessing  justly  due 
For  sloth  or  effort  in  the  past. 

My  life's  a  statement  of  the  sum 

Of  vice  indulged,  or  overcome. 

And  as  I  wander  on  the  roads 
I  shall  be  helped  and  healed  and  blessed ; 

Dear  words  shall  cheer  and  be  as  goads 
To  urge  to  heights  before  unguessed. 

My  road  shall  be  the  road  I  made: 

All  that  I  gave  shall  be  repaid. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  11 

So  shall  I  fight,  so  shall  I  tread, 

In  this  long  war  beneath  the  stars ; 
So  shall  a  glory  wreathe  my  head, 

So  shall  I  faint  and  show  the  scars, 
Until  this  case,  this  clogging  mold, 
Be  smithied  all  to  kingly  gold. 

In  the  chapters  of  this  little  work  a  stigmatized 
scribbler  arises  to  advocate  a  very  old  doctrine  or  idea, 
"Rebirth/'  expecting  all  the  souls  of  all  the  living 
creatures  here  on  earth  to  be  reborn  countless  times, 
and  be  back  on  earth,  until  all  mankind  will  attain  that 
perfection  to  at  last  be  able  to  abide  in  harmony  in 
that  ever  yearned  for  place  or  condition  where  a 
heaven  in  reality  is  attained — with  no  more  of  the  dis- 
cords of  the  good  and  bad  of  life  to  make  a  Lamb  of 
God  other  than  an  Elder  Brother.  "Who  told  thee 
that  thou  wert  naked  ?"  Adam  was  free  to  say  things 
not  true,  possibly,  about  Eve,  and  drew  the  long-bow, 
as  the  saying  is  in  our  language;  also  he  accused  a 
hypnotist,  a  snake,  for  making  things  worse.  This 
style  of  lying  seemed  to  be  at  the  very  beginning  of 
our  race. 

As  wise  men  have  ever  affirmed,  the  earth  when 
fitted  for  life  and  later  for  mankind,  was  provided 
with  sustenance,  and  for  homes — a  state  of  felicity 
highest  of  all.  Soul  and  life  seem  synonymously  one 
element,  the  only  other  materiality. 

Larger  forms,  with  the  brain  dominating,  have  the 
long-time  hibernation,  death  we  call  it,  while  the 
underworld,  so  called  in  Grecian  literature,  hath  the 
Lethean  forgetfulness  of  the  past;  yet  the  feebler 
worm,  locust,  etc.,  will  be  buried  alive  in  the  earth  to 
pass  the  period  and  very  briefly,  it  seems,  to  stay 
above  the  little  while  in  sunlight  and  active  life. 


12  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

"The  March"  from  "Saul/'  is  remembrancer  for  all 
of  the  Great  Adventure  death, — from  Incarnation  to 
Spirit.  Bathing  in  the  Lake  of  Lethe  for  purification, 
then  the  preparation  for  and  passing  the  gate  of  life 
again. 

Dimly  in  infancy  thy  world  will  appear  with  that 
early  Hebraic  sign  in  a  church,  as  the  Command- 
ments— partly  unfitted  for  the  present  age.  "Thou 
shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  Me.  Correct;  but  yet 
in  the  prayer,  another  reads,  "Lead  us  not  into 
temptation  but  deliver  us  from  evil."  Children  in  this 
age  would  not  make  this  balk. 

Our  American  poet  Whitman  says,  personifying  his 
soul's  path  through  the  reincarnations :  "O  vapors,  I 
think  I  have  risen  with  you,  and  moved  away  to  dis- 
tant continents  and  fallen  down  there,  for  reasons;  I 
think  I  have  blown  with  you,  O  winds;  O  waters  I 
have  fingered  every  shore  with  you.  All  forces  have 
been  steadily  employed  to  complete  and  delight  me. 
Now  on  this  spot  I  stand  with  my  robust  soul.  Hands 
of  the  sisters,  Death  and  Night,  incessantly  softly 
wash  me." 

Eve,  the  submissive,  the  good,  has  been  lied  about 
or  enslaved  all  through  the  years.  It  is  plainly  to  be 
seen  she  does  not  tempt  Adam  to  be  over-indulgent 
in  use  of  drugged  liquors,  tobacco  and  other  poisons. 
The  root  of  woman's  nature  is  to  love  and  cherish, 
even  the  lowest  of  females  in  animal  kind  have  this 
instinct  springing  from  motherhood. 

There  is  much  of  old  Adam  even  in  the  churches, 
as  you  may  start  to  cut  out  dead  wood  from  pulpit 
and  amen  corner  to  the  rear  benches  (for  poor  and 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  13 

the  niggers).  Have  these  latter  a  shed  for  shelter  in 
heaven  ? 

You  hear  much  from  the  meek,  owlish,  well-dressed 
priest  (some  in  gold-spangled  garments)  about  his 
want  of  funds — a  money  changer.  The  higher  "calls" 
— they  are  not  in  the  catalogue  with  Jesus, — are  a 

P  source  of  great  interest  among  God's  agents  or  minis- 
ters today.  And  mere  loafers  in  the  house  of  God 
have  in  our  free  country,  that  ignores  church  entangle- 
ments, all  kinds  of  business  and  other  callings  at  high 
salaries,  for  the  asking.  Unlike  the  union  that  Adam 
belongs  to  (churchly)  our  good  government  offers 
equal  opportunities  for  women. 

Costly  bible  institutes  for  education  surely  prepare 
the  student  for  usefulness  and  keeps  him  away  from 
low  life  and  beggary.  Receiving  useful  knowledge, 
any  young  person  of  brains  may  go  up  to  the  highest 
rung  in  life.  Only  indolence  or  worse  can  keep  any 
away  from  the  true  Path  and  away  from  that  Levitism 
abhored  by  Jesus,  and  of  the  still  lower  grade  of 
money  changers  in  the  temple. 

A  scientist  as  previously  quoted  says  that  smallest 
of  matter  still  emits  rays.  This  is  equivalent  to  that 
saying  of  Jesus  of  the  spiritual  inhering  in  all  life — 
the  kingdom  of  God  being  within  you.  If  you  start  a 
fire  in  any  spot  where  a  fire  may  spread,  it  will  enlarge 
from  heat  into  greater  flames.  An  old  saying,  that 
the  world  will  be  burned — or  we  will  have  another 
flood — the  polar  opposition  from  fire.  Words  of  the 
prophet  are  a  true  saying,  if  extended  to  spirit  and 
matter  being  intermingled;  so  reincarnation  is  in  a 
way  natural. 


14  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Milton,  in  grandest  of  poems,  hints  that  the  high- 
est heaven  may  be  encroached  upon  by  the  lowest, 
Apolleon.  Defeated  above,  the  devil — darkness — 
sought  the  light  in  mankind.  In  other  words  the 
Christ  permitted  the  old  boy  to  get  a  lodgment;  but 
we  are  of  the  godly, — yet — beware ! 

Adam  lied  when  he  said  he  walked  with  the  true 
God  in  the  cool  of  the  evening;  then  he  whispered  to 
the  Highest  that  Eve  had  tempted  him,  and  he  did 
eat  (some  person's  chicken  of  woman's  excellent 
cooking),  the  blasted  snake-fruit! 

I  have  marks  on  my  body  called  stigmas,  that  mark 
infrequent  intervals  in  man's  history  to  account  for 
the  last  2,000  years  of  the  struggle  to  escape  savagery 
of  the  Roman  period.  This  sign,  marks  of  that  Age 
of  Tyranny  from  which  the  gentle  Jesus  died  in  many 
hours  of  his  agony  on  the  cross.  That  great  New 
England  author,  Hawthorne,  dared  to  raise  his  voice 
against  fanaticism.  His  heroine  was  branded  by  pub- 
lic authority  of  Puritan  religionists,  and  she  died  bear- 
ing the  cursed  mark  on  her  breast.  And  scores  of 
so-called  witches  (earliest  of  Christians)  were  put  to 
death  in  this  land  of  the  free.  Even  in  our  day  the 
citizens  of  all  governments  dare  not  risk  a  vote  to  pub- 
licly declare  if  wars  shall  cease !  Two  thousand  years 
ago  a  preacher  was  abroad  asking  for  peace  and  com- 
passion. Even  Lincoln  says  of  majorities,  "God  must 
love  the  poor,  He  made  so  many  of  them."  People 
of  old  were  satisfied(P)  to  be  called  publicans  and 
sinners.  To  torture  and  kill  the  great  preacher,  Jesus, 
a  pact  was  made  between  Power — Rome,  and  Religion, 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  15 

such  as  it  was ;  a  judge,  however,  declaring,  "I  find  no 
-fault  in  this  man  Jesus. 

Dante : 

In  this  their  order  diversely,  some  more 

Some  less  approaching  to  their  primal  source. 

Thus  they  to  different  havens  are  moved  on 

Through  the  vast  sea  of  being,  and  each  one 

With  instinct  given,  that  bears  it  in  its  course; 

This  to  the  lunar  sphere  directs  the  fire, 

This  prompts  the  hearts  of  mortal  animals, 

This  the  brute  earth  together  knits,  and  binds. 

Nor  only  creatures  void  of  intellect, 

Are  aimed  at  by  this  bow ;  but  even  those 

That  have  intelligence  and  love  are  pierced. 

That  Providence,  that  so  well  orders  all, 

With  her  own  Light  makes  ever  calm  the  heaven, 

In  which  the  substance — that  hath  greatest  speed, 

Is  turned.    And  thither  now  as  to  our  seat 

Predestined,  we  are  carried  by  the  force 

Of  that  strong  cord,  that  never  loses  dart 

But  at  fair  aim  and  glad.     Yet  is  it  true 

That  as  ofttimes  but  ill  accords  the  form 

To  the  design  of  Art  through  sluggishness 

Of  unreplying  matter,  so  this  course 

Is  sometimes  quitted  by  the  creature,  who 

Hath  power,  directed  thus,  to  bend  elsewhere — 

As  from  a  cloud  the  fire  is  seen  to  fall 

From  its  original  impulse  warped  to  earth, 

By  vicious  fondness.     Thou  no  more  admire 

Thy  soaring   (if  I  rightly  deem)   than  lapse 

Of  torrent  downwards  from  a  mountain's  height. 

There  would  in  thee  for  wonder  be  more  cause, 

If,  free  of  hindrance,  thou  hadst  fixed  thyself 

Below,  like  fire  in  moving  on  the  earth. 

From  Dante's  Pergatory,  I  pass  along  to  his  Para- 
dise — vision  of  a  returned  soul  upon  earth: 

That  Lethe's  water  hath  not  hid  it  from  him. 
That  oft  the  memory  'reaves,  perchance  hath  made 
His  mind's  eye  dark.    But  lo !  where  Ennoe  flows ! 
Lead  hither;  an  as  thou  art  want,  revive 
His  fainting  virtue.  .  .  . 

Then  Reader,  might  I  sing,  though  but  in  part, 
That  beverage,  with  whose  sweetness  I  had  ne'er 
Been  sated.    But  since  all  the  leaves  are  full. 


16  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Appointed  for  this  second  strain,  mine  art 
With  warning  bridle  checks  me.    I  returned 
From  the  most  holy  wave,  regenerate. 
Even  as  new  plants,  renewed  with  foliage  new, 
Pure  and  made  apt  for  mounting  to  the  stars. 

And  this  is  an  age  for  us  mortals  to  rise  in  airplane 
flights  surely!  The  babe,  sated  with  that  beverage, 
the  mother's  milk, 

Gazing  as  never  eagle  fixed  his  ken, 

As  from  a  first  a  second  beam  is  wont 

To  issue,  and  reflected  upwards  rise, 

E'en  as  a  pilgrim  bent  on  his  return. 

So  with  her  (soul's)  act,  that  through  the  eyesight  passed 

Into  my  fancy,  mine  was  formed;  and  straight 

Beyond  our  mortal  wont,  I  fixed  mine  eyes 

Upon  the  sun.    Much  is  allowed  us  There 

That  Here  exceeds  pur  power;  thanks  to  the  place 

Made  for  the  dwelling  of  the  human  kind.  .  .  . 

And  suddenly  upon  the  day  appeared 

A  day  new  risen,  as  He  who  hath  the  power 

Had  with  another  sun  (soul)  bedecked  the  sky. 

In  the  last  analysis  of  character,  the  system  called 
reincarnation  has  no  weak  spots,  not  in  smallest  of 
the  spirits..  Souls  that  are  for  earth,  we  may  say,  all 
generations,  are  as  to  the  smallest  forms — making 
growth,  making  changes  to  suit  the  condition  as  to 
future  heat  and  cold,  for  our  earth  itself,  has  soul  and 
body.  Let  us  refer  to  all  animal  life,  that  we  know 
grows  in  shape  and  fineness  to  suit  the  later  conditions. 
Take  the  forms  so  familiar  to  us,  the  horse,  in  fact 
all  domestic  animals.  Then  the  earth's  pets  (butter- 
flies, locuts,  etc.),  we  know  of  their  passing  long  years 
in  the  "underworld,"  to  appear  for  a  brief  spell  in 
full  sunlight,  almost  momentarily  to  enjoy  existence, 
then  as  happily  sings  the  locust,  after  the  egg-laying, 
seeks  again  the  darkness  that  fits  its  longer  term  of 
existence. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  17 

Our  Creator  has  ways  past  rinding  out.  Fitted  are 
the  two  polarities  of  being  as  needed.  We  wonder 
why  such  as  the  fleas,  as  robbers  of  human  blood,  or 
as  the  bigger  torments,  human  criminals,  are  needed 
for  life's  purposes.  But  a  heaven  can  be  fuller  here, 
than  (imagined)  above  all  the  homes  of  earth,  again 
grandeurs,  joys  and  social  life  are  beyond  dreams  of 
poet  and  artist ! 

Body  and  soul  so  intimately  blended  are  they,  that 
a  healthy  person  knows  scarcely  where  one  touches  the 
other.  Traits  of  character  are  almost  like  the  twin 
body,  with  its  soul.  We  know  of  most  remarkable 
men  and  women  whose  traits  re-unitedly  theirs. 
Sickly  children  have  often  the  healthy  after-life  of 
effort  and  joy;  some  of  these,  poets  and  philosophers, 
caused  their  mothers  often  to  wonder  as  of  a  gift  from 
God,  knowing  how  the  little  ones  thrive. 

We  have  amongst  us  Helen  Keller,  whose  faculties 
have  been  restored,  trained  from  the  inborn  traits. 
And  her  soul  now,  in  life  and  joy,  is  the  greatest  of 
puzzles.  A  body  that  was  tortured,  crucified,  as  was 
that  of  Jesus,  leaves  marks  to  show  plainly  elsewhere 
after  nearly  2,000  years!  These  stigmas  are  more 
than  birthmarks. 

In  lower  forms  of  the  soul,  the  "worm"  stage  of 
the  body,  from  plain  and  loathsome  (to  us)  they  in 
later  existence  give  us  butterflies  and  other  of  the 
most  beautiful  aspects  in  colors  and  forms. 

Read  Franklin  H.  Heald's  Procession  of  the 
Planets,  scouted  at  or  ignored  as  it  may  be  by  scien- 
tists ;  yet  in  studies  like  Prof.  Chamberlin's  of  Chicago, 
lately,  you  will  find  the  ipse  dixit  of  the  learned  ones 


18  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

of  the  past  entirely  reversed,  as  to  the  earth's  solidity. 
The  sun  in  every  system  of  planets  must  resemble, — 
as  Lakes  of  Lethe  for  our  souls — have  material  un- 
seeable to  constitute  the  materials,  for  life,  here  on 
earth  and  elsewhere.  New  worlds  are  thus  formed, 
so  are  new  bodies  for  all  the  living.  Heat,  of  the 
material  kind,  has  wonderful  properties  it  may  be,  to 
weld  the  two  aspects,  soul  and  body.  The  soul's  in- 
dividual complexities,  generation  after  generation  in  a 
true  Path — "driven  out  from  God,"  as  we  say,  then 
reaches  the  sphere  called  Life.  No  two  souls  are  just 
alike!  Even  in  birth  of  twins  or  triplets,  as  often 
happens  with  us,  the  natures  are  entities. 

Wise  men  of  the  East,  as  recorded  by  the  shepherd 
poet  watching  by  night  his  flocks,  saw  overhead  the 
galaxy  of  bright  stars,  and  also  the  comet  westward. 
He  does  not  make  record  of  the  other  party  in  day- 
time, going  westward  looking  for  the  foot  of  that 
rainbow — where  gold  is  buried, — some  of  each  party 
finally  landed  in  California  and  other  states  of  our 
Union. 

As  to  where  the  Wise  Men  found  the  new-born 
Christ,  opinions  differ ;  some  say  in  a  stable,  others  in 
a  manger. 

Soon  after  the  cruel  ending  of  this  babe,  the  dom- 
inant religionists  (or  conquerors)  and  one  pope  re- 
mained settled  in  Rome,  the  other  in  Constantinople. 
Since  the  recent  overthrow  of  the  son  of  Victoria  of 
England,  Russia  has  no  "religion." 

The  Night  and  the  Day.  John  Burroughs,  my 
serene  and  happy  friend  and  friend  of  the  birds,  had 
query  as  to  the  cruelty  of  nature — that  gives  us  the 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  19 

sun  by  day  and  moon  by  night.  The  owl  is  not  a 
solemn  bird;  for  you  judge  the  creature  by  daylight — 
its  time  for  sleep.  See  the  same  bird  at  night,  wide- 
awake, at  its  nest,  and  the  joys  it  has  at  home  where 
love  rules,  and  ever  and  ever  rule  it  should!  The 
nestlings  are  most  joyful  of  living  creatures  and  in 
this  regard,  with  the  parents  unmolested,  far  surpass 
the  proud,  too  often  peevish,  human  kind. 

You  will  find  that  even  at  his  prayers  the  owlish 
(in  piety)  takes  great  comfort  in  solemnity,  many 
times,  too,  lacking  in  sincerity  and  saturated  as  we  are 
with  "business/'  the  leading  tone  is  selfishness.  Go 
into  thy  closet  with  a  feeling  of  joy,  as  one  meeting 
a  lover  and  true  friend;  for  God,  as  Jesus  instructs, 
says,  is  not  far  off — "is  within  you."  Do  not  in  the 
stillness  of  thy  closet  act  the  part  of  a  cringing  beg- 
gar— what  is  truly  thine  will  come  to  thee!  It  is  a 
poor  return  when  communing  with  Spirit  at  all  times, 
and  with  men  sometimes,  to  act  the  part  that  is  mean, 
of  beggary  acknowledged.  Speak  no  evil  of  anyone. 
He  knoweth  all,  and  if  acting  the  Good  Samaritan,  you 
especially  as  a  minister  of  God,  and  among  those 
"sitting  in  darkness,"  be  truly  and  honestly  helpful. 
Weak  nations  are  almost  always  the  victims  of  those 
who  call  themselves  Christians,  since  the  dawn  of 
American  history.  Raising  the  cross  surely  did  not 
indicate  the  presence  of  good  Samaritans  in  such 
crowds  as  ruined  gentle  natives,  hospitable  and  civil- 
ized as  were  native  Peruvians  and  Mexicans. 

The  light  of  life  here  on  earth — at  its  withdrawal — 
is  not  calamity,  only  as  respects  parting  from  beloved 
ones  awhile ;  for  God  rules.  Your  soul  goes  marching 


20  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

on,  to  later  reincarnations  and  reunions;  again  with 
the  awhile  loved  and  lost  you  will  meet  in  joy. 

An  anxious  question  is  asked,  Will  we  know  each 
other  in  the  new  term  of  life?  I  think  so,  for  I  have 
observed  that  even  with  horses  the  touch  of  noses  is 
a  conveying  of  intelligence  one  to  another.  We  can 
have  this  language  when  it  is  needful,  for  surely  we 
are  not  below  the  horse  in  intellect,  and  especially 
when  love  points  the  way. 

I  surmise  that  the  after  life  periods,  and  rebirths 
differ  little  as  with  animal  natures,  as  all  alike  are 
children  of  earth.  Being  primates,  the  larger  soul 
needs  a  larger  circuit.  Instead  of  groveling  as  little 
souls  do  in  the  underworld  or  elsewhere,  the  superior 
in  intellect  goes  into  higher  elements  surrounding. 
The  rebirths,  whithersoever,  do  reach  earth  again  and 
again,  via  reincarnation.  This  is  an  older  belief  than 
our  historic  and  recent  religions.  We  hear  of  it  con- 
stantly by  tradition,  and  so  handed  to  our  Christians 
of  today, — that  prayer  of  sincerity,  Jesus  will  be  re- 
born on  earth! 

I  have  often  alluded  to  a  Night  of  the  Soul,  nega- 
tive of  life's  positive — as  Milton  in  his  sublime  poem 
told  of  the  proceeding  of  casting  out  devils  from 
heaven.  You  see,  on  earth  the  near  relation  of  day 
and  night,  for  creatures  can  not  live  without  a  re- 
newal in  sleep.  As  Bunyan  starts  Christian  with  a 
load  of  sin,  these  ofttimes  heavier  than  can  be  borne, 
yet  in  the  renewal  of  pleasant  rest  and  dreams,  how 
refreshed  we  can  open  the  morning,  singing  for  joy. 
So  it  is,  escaping  a  night — everlasting. 

So  goes  my  story  of  life,  including  on  the  traveled 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  21 

road  all  creatures.  As  many  die,  averaging  the  years, 
as  are  born.  It  is  unaccountable  that  some  Christians, 
dazed  by  beliefs  of  old,  cling  to  the  sacrificial  altar, 
streaming  with  blood,  in  his  conceptions,  he  yielding 
possibly  to  the  priestly  demand  (  ?)  for  burnt  offerings 
(fried  chicken)  and  money  gifts  for  promised  remis- 
sion for  sins — believing  the  Compassionate  One,  Jesus, 
had  been  offered  up  to  his  Father  to  be  put  to  cruelest 
of  deaths,  a  sacrifice,  so  to  get  remission  of  sins  for 
a  poor  little  Christian  man  of  today,  and  also  for  his 
reivards,  etc.,  etc.. 

Even  our  best  scientific  inquirers  cannot  fix  on  the 
functions  stored  in  a  tiny  egg.  The  stabilizing  and 
other  needs,  as  the  directing  of  homing  pigeons,  needs 
for  the  millions  of  creatures  beginning  life  here, 
would  not  all  be  learned  of  highest  gifts  to  man,  in 
hundreds  of  rebirths.  What  little  account  could  our 
Creator  take  of  prayers  of  all,  in  all  languages  and  to 
hear  the  praises  round  a  throne,  from  all  creation ! 

We  speak  of  wornout  New  England  farms;  so  we 
might  speak  of  the  deserts  in  all  lands  possibly.  Our 
orb  longer  blessed  and  later  covered  with  vegetation, 
and  waters  abounding  in  fish,  should  not  show  now 
any  signs  of  decay,  so  early  after  making  up  of  the 
same. 

Man  is  a  poor  farmer  to  have  deserts  near  his  "land 
of  promise/'  or  say  only  abandoned  farms.  We  find 
there  is  no  trouble  with  nature  and  her  affairs.  I  have 
seen  southern  cotton  lands  of  lazy  owners,  in  ridges 
in  the  forests,  unused  and  back  in  the  wilds.  These 
lands  are  thus  being  renovated  by  allowing  pine  trees 
to  start  and  grow  thereon.  The  whole  earth,  it  is  said, 


22  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

was  once  covered  by  the  flood,  yet  man's  feebler  ef- 
forts only  amount  to  irrigation  in  spots!  It  is  the 
same  always  with  nature  and  mankind.  If  you  do  not 
keep  garden,  radishes,  carrots,  chicory,  and  beets 
under  cultivation,  they  go  to  the  wilds  for  better  care. 
It  is  only  that  we  can  get  such  as  watercress, — because 
this  plant  is  irrigated — watered  by  nature  at  her 
springs  bubbling  up  here  and  there. 

How  are  the  living  creatures  of  the  garden  of  God 
being  cared  for  in  general?  We  have  failing  man- 
hood propped  by  a  fiction  in  marriage  called  "love," 
that  is  not  Love.  With  airplanes,  autos,  etc.,  as  pre- 
cludes any  serious  thinking  on  affairs,  on  long  jour- 
neys, the  lady  passengers  especially  crowding  in  their 
best-sellers — novels,  so-called,  for  the  speeders  to  while 
away  time  perusing.  A  favorite  command  to  the 
man  at  the  wheel  is,  go  faster.  So  go  the  idlers,  pass- 
ing such  small  spots  en  route  as  Devilton,  Deep  Sea 
Port,  and  finally  the  crowd  may  be  wrecked  at  the 
Point  of  Land  lying  ahead — called  by  the  unfashion- 
able name,  Hell ! 

Rebirths,  reunions,  it  seems  to  me,  are  the  primal 
laws  of  life  here  and  hereafter,  for  our  spirits  are  to 
return  to  earth,  as  Jesus  hinted,  by  rebirth.  He  said 
that  except  ye  become  as  little  children,  you  are  not 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  of  light  higher  than  this 
life:  "Be  such  as  these  little  ones,"  for  they  have 
passed  the  Lake  of  Purification. 

A  path  for  all  the  living,  souls  or  carnals,  is,  if  you 
believe  in  immortality — from  birth  until  death  here 
and  the  heavenly  life  you  hope  for.  Belief  should 
have  no  infidelic  gap,  being  of  those  who  die,  quit  of 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  23 

higher  prospects  of  life  here  or  hereafter.  Let  us 
hope  there  will  be  no  dropping  out  even  in  thought, 
losing  sight  of  a  chain  of  being  with  no  beginning  or 
ending.  The  rolling  earth  has  its  365  days  every  year 
of  your  life  here;  but  the  orb  everlasting,  above  and 
beyond  us,  completes  the  great  circuit  of  being. 

One  feature  of  the  Quaker  migration  to  Pennsyl- 
vania to  escape  persecutions  in  England,  were  of  the 
great  number  bearing  distinction  in  the  old  home  land. 
Of  the  Nottingham  colony  were  the  Lincolns,  Def oes, 
Hanks  and  Boones;  Daniel  Boone  later  of  Kentucky, 
and  Abraham  Lincoln  descended,  as  also  his  mother 
(Hanks),  from  these  Quaker  emigrants.  A  niece  of 
Daniel  Defoe,  the  London  Quaker,  coming  to  the 
colony  at  Nottingham,  deserves  peculiar  mention.  Her 
mother  and  the  uncle,  Daniel  Defoe,  thwarting  her  in- 
tended marriage  ("out  of  meeting,"  they  being  of  the 
Society  of  Friends),  the  girl  of  independent  spirit  sold 
herself  to  a  sea  captain  to  pay  for  a  passage  to  the 
Delaware  and  was  "redeemed"  (by  paying  the  money) 
by  Friend  Job  of  the  Nottingham  Colony.  Later  she 
married  her  purchaser's  son,  and  a  grandson  of  this 
marriage  was  Andy  Job,  born  near  the  Friends'  brick 
meeting  house,  Maryland.  The  strange  character  of 
Andy  Job  was  a  few  years  ago  written  up  for  and 
published  in  Scribner's  Monthly,  by  Mary  Ireland,  and 
well  illustrated.  Andy's  farm  was  an  excellent  one, 
received  as  inheritance.  He  would  not  admit  visitors 
to  his  cabin — in  a  beautiful  white  oak  grove  on  his 
lands,  possibly  from  the  fact  that  he  wore  no  clothing 
except  in  coldest  of  weathers,  and  did  all  his  own 
work,  though  owning  a  nice  herd  of  cattle.  In  every 


24  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

way — though  not  thought  to  be  demented,  he  pat- 
terned his  life  much  like  that  described  by  Daniel 
Defoe  in  his  famous  story  of  Robinson  Crusoe.  In 
this  very  peculiar  case,  no  inheritance  from  any  real 
personage  is  known  and  must  be  of  the  order  of  re- 
incarnation, as  the  forerunners,  savages,  were  never 
known. 

I  have  hitherto  quoted  a  French  scientist  as  saying 
that  all  matter  he  has  examined  emits  rays  of  light. 
There  is  no  doubt  with  anyone  that  all  things  are 
under  domination  in  Essence  and  Matter — a  Creator 
for  matter  surely,  the  other  being  the  spirit  thereof. 

It  is  well  known  that  we  have  wheat  today  from  a 
few  seeds  fo.und  in  Egyptian  tombs  of  some  early  age. 
"The  seed  of  the  Kingdom"  is  often  a  quotation ;  and 
Jesus,  the  prophet,  declared  "the  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  you."  Even  the  little  girl,  when  asked  who 
made  her,  said  "God  made  me — so  high ;  I  growed  the 
rest!" 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  25 


II 

Title  of  this  book,  Physical  Life  and  Inner  Light — 
light  'not  of  the  sun,  but  of  the  Creator  who  shows  in 
physical  being,  all  that  we  know  of  such  in  this  life. 

Speaking  of  seeds  that  endure,  I  am  reminded  of 
once  attending  a  lecture  in  Yale  University  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Seat  of  Life  here.  The  speaker  told  us  of 
a  few  experiments  he  had  made.  He  selected  some 
frozen  fish  in  market  with  fins  and  tails  intact,  and 
taking  the  fish  to  an  unfrozen  body  of  water,  dropped 
them  in.  When  spring  came,  the  fish  had  all  "thawed 
out"  and  were  as  lively  as  crickets!  The  speaker 
owned  a  pond  full  of  terrapins,  etc.,  and  taking  pity 
upon  an  exposed  one  with  shell  fast  in  the  ice,  dug  a 
hole  nearby  and  buried  the  turtle  below  frost  line.  In 
the  spring  he  found  the  terrapins  alive  and  well — 
except  the  one  he  had  buried ! 

This  is  explanation  so  many  poor  mortals  make  who 
can  think  of  no  entity  higher  than  theirs.  These  so 
pettishly  and  foolishly  blurt  out,  "There  is  no  God !" 
A  fool  of  the  "educated"  sort  once  told  a  Quaker  he 
could  not  see — did  not  believe — there  was  a  God.  The 
Friend  merely  asked,  "Has  thee  ever  seen  thy  brains, 
young  man?  (Of  course  he  hadn't.)  Then  dost  thee 
know  that  thee  has  any?" 

If  a  distinguished  scientist  gives  up  the  riddle  of 
life  as  unsolvable,  so  without  more  ado  we  poor  mor- 
tals must  let  the  frost  make  occasional  kills;  in  the 
case  alluded  to,  man  was  to  blame.  Even  old  earth 
has  spells  of  the  bellyache  (earthquakes)  and  worries. 


26  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

As  education  and  culture  advance,  so  does  the 
reverence  for  womankind.  Inferiority  in  sex  is  not 
recognized  in  animals  below  man.  Excepting  we  now 
have  less  amazons  for  war;  even  the  nobles,  kaisers 
and  chiefs  are  falling  into  ways  of  the  softer  sex  and 
plead  for  ending  of  that  savagery;  a  co-worker  with 
slavery  is  war.  In  our  bible  scriptures  and  of  the 
Shinto,  Buddhist  and  Christian  beliefs,  there  is  the 
trace  of  creating  better  evolutions.  The  "born  of  a 
virgin"  is  not  put  forward  as  the  true  miracle  of  pre- 
dominance. Japanese  make  the  variant,  showing 
greatest  respect  for  both  parents,  yet  have  proper 
respect  for  the  wife  and  daughters.  This  precludes  all 
gush  about  beauty  and  its  sex  abuses. 

And  He  rested  on  the  seventh  day,  for  tiresome  is 
the  work  of  creation.  That  is  to  say,  putting  the  cart 
before  the  horse,  for  it  is  not  likely  man  could  have 
invented  an  almanac  before  there  was  call  for  such  a 
book — as  I  remember  away  back,  our  old  Dutch  kind 
gave  us  rules  for  planting  in  dark  or  light  of  the  moon 
and  had  many  saws  and  funny  crips.  Think  it  over, 
and  be  of  the  religion  of  Jesus:  "The  Sabbath  was 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath/' 

"And  the  soul  returned  to  me  and  said,  thyself  art 
heaven  and  hell/'  so  Whitman  later  than  Omar,  on  the 
seaside  said,  "I  have  fingered  every  shore  with  thee — 
my  soul!" 

We  can  have  notions,  intimately  in  fancy,  of  no 
places  away  from  earth.  Traveling  in  Germany,  a 
new  country  to  me  seemingly,  and  when  in  region 
of  the  Black  Forest  had  intimations  of  familiar  land- 
scapes there.  This,  as  if  the  soul  in  former  rebirth, 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  27 

I  probably  had  been  home  there  on  that  great  Path  of 
the  Eternal.  No  mortals  have,  except  they  be  poets, 
the  fancy  fit  to  guess  at  unseen  things.  Milton  in  his 
conception  of  a  war  just  outside  heaven's  gate, — to 
subdue,  as  earth  also  experienced  later,  arch  fiends,  in- 
vaders of  the  devil  order, — the  wrong  polarity,  as  the 
robbers,  holdups,  etc. 

Many  besides  our  greatest  prophet  speak  of  the 
light  within  that  must  drive  out  any  spiritual  dark- 
ness. But  if  questioned  about  heaven  and  heavenly 
places — for  preferments  of  anxious  politicians  and 
such,  Jesus  could  only  answer  folly  by  folly:  heaven 
is  a  place  of  many  mansions.  He  did  not  proceed  to 
give  particulars  as  to  taxations,  and  money  changers — 
he  had  had  too  much  trouble  with  the  selfish  followers. 

It  is  useless  in  our  discussions  of  the  golden  rule, 
etc.,  to  mention  those  worthies,  ancient  and  modern, 
who  gave  for  the  thoughtful  so  many  times,  as  did 
Jesus,  differing  only  in  degree,  the  difference  between 
highest  orbs — sun,  moon  and  stars,  in  comparison  to 
the  light  (as  Milton  said,  holy  light)  that  lighteth  up 
a  passage  throughout  the  soul's  path.  At  the  first 
lesson  in  the  primer  learn  that  "the  kingdom  of  God 
is  within  you." 

How  poorly  has  the  best  of  mortals  made  out  dis- 
covering things  of  earth  in  the  usual  lifetime!  So  in 
the  chances  offered  by  our  Creator  to  perfect  ourselves 
He  has  given  us  more  than  one  chance,  by  rebirth. 
But  if  artists  leave  their  best  work,  soon  time  ruins 
the  colors,  as  no  pigments  can  be  everlasting.  To  make 
their  landscapes  near  the  nature  models  must  require 
artists  to  guess  at  the  transitory,  the  vanishings  with 


28  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

time.  Curious  curves  over  the  picture  to  blot  out 
visiojn  of  shades  very  transitory — clouds,  streams,  and 
decay  in  all  mountain  grandeurs  in  the  pictures.  In 
reincarnation  we  can  secure  features  of  Nature  in 
longer  decay  periods.  Our  "night  time  away  from 
Nature"  refreshes  us,  and  in  each  life  time  can  with 
Milton's  grand  apostrophe,  "Hail,  Holy  Light,  off- 
spring of  heaven !"  A  new  heaven,  and  a  new  earth — 
or  older  earth.  So  we  journey  afresh  through  the 
Seven  Ages  of  Man.  Thus  comes  renewal  of  strength, 
of  aptitude  for  life,  that  in  the  night  of  the  soul  gets 
still  more  of  the  higher  light  and  more  manly  strength 
also  on  being. 

The  latest  kind  of  Bible  miracles  for  children  to 
read  are  those  made  up  at  a  period  when  Cicero  and 
other  famous  men  of  Rome  made  literature  prized 
ever  since.  Let  me  cite  one  miracle  to  explain  (  !)  the 
life  work  of  the  world's  Example  in  every  regard :  a 
story  of  Jesus  at  a  jolly  wedding  party  making  good 
wine.  Such  a  character  today  would  be  consorted  with 
bootleggers  and  breakers  of  the  18th  Amendment  to 
our  national  Constitution. 

This  senseless,  profane  charge  made  against  our 
Savior  causes  all  the  religious  murders,  burning  of 
martyrs  alive — and  destruction  of  true  writings  of  the 
best  of  authors, — who  could  not  believe  "the  entire 
Bible"  as  handed  down.  The  very  kind  of  infidelity 
that  has  ruined  the  good  name  of  a  church  and  has- 
tens the  downfall  of  it. 

Then,  I  say,  on  behalf  of  religion,  separate  the  sheep 
from  the  goats  in  any  reverenced  volume,  as  the  Bible, 
so  to  keep  the  children  of  God  provided  with  only 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  29 

intelligent  traditions,  etc.,  of  the  moral  kind,  touching 
all  the  events  in  the  farthest  past. 

A  print  shop  and  a  paper  mill,  ill  used,  have  brought 
to  the  world  a  new  form  of  idolatry,  that  formerly  was 
among  stone-cutters  and  hewers  of  wood.  Originating 
long  before  mankind  had  knowledge,  they  set  up  some- 
thing to  call  an  unknown  spirit;  later,  when  language 
grew,  it  was  called  the  gods.  There  is  no  excuse  now 
for  idolatry. 

Tradition,  that  tells  us  so  much  of  interest  about 
affairs  in  the  ancient  world,  is  of  priceless  value,  a 
thousand  times  better  in  form  of  knowledge  than 
learned  in  the  houses  of  gods,  priestcraft,  and  such 
monopolies.  These  have  been  to  some  extent  gathered, 
and  one  regarding  the  formation  of  the  earth  life — 
then  mostly  amphibious,  but  can  be  studied  today  in 
the  rings  of  Saturn,  with  more  perfect  telescopes,  as  to 
the  vapors  and  intermingled  matters.  First  was  pos- 
sibly tradition  of  the  flood.  An  ingenious  story-teller 
among  those  who  tend  herds  of  sheep  by  night  started, 
possibly,  telling  of  a  Noah's  flood.  The  pious  hero  of 
such  an  age — if  he  now  had  such  a  reputation,  would 
go  to  jail  for  sex  enormities  and  drunkenness.  He, 
Noah,  and  family  are  reported  among  the  saved  mor- 
tals, with  the  pairs  of  live  creatures  herded  in  Noah's 
tub! 

The  next  water  story,  told  by  some  shepherd  on  the 
hills,  was  that  about  pious  Jonah,  who  was  swallowed 
by  a  whale.  He  had  a  sea  voyage  of  three  days  ahead, 
free  of  cost,  and  in  all  that  time  Jonah  found  comfort, 
maybe,  but  the  whale  got  seasick.  The  big  fish  "threw 
up"  about  everything  loose,  including  the  "pious  ex- 


30  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

ample" — and  this  hero  of  the  Bible  story  landed  just 
where  on  shore  he  wanted  to  go.  Three  days  in  a 
whale's  belly,  and  not  any  sea  sickness  or  a  sea  biscuit ! 

At  Sunday  School  the  pious  but  smart  boy  was 
asked  to  state  a  moral  to  the  class.  He  did!  "You 
cannot  keep  a  good  man  (Jonah)  down." 

No  knowledge,  even  apparently  trivial,  says  Maurice 
Thompson,  can  be  without  its  place  in  the  great  chain 
of  wisdom.  "Art  is  not  the  whole  of  life,  nor  is  mate- 
rial progress  the  only  good.  The  pleasure  of  knowl- 
edge never  embodied  in  painting,  sculpture  or  poem, 
nor  applied  to  any  economic  purpose,  is  of  itself  a 
mighty  factor  in  the  operations  of  human  life." 

il  v^    >4jL«o«  />JaiW>Jvj;rf:oa'j;rjv 

"Lights  out"  along  the  land, 
"Lights  out"  upon  the  sea. 
The  night  must  put  her  hiding  hand 
Out  with  the  tranquil  lights, 
Out  with  the  lights  that  burn 
For  love  and  law  and  human  rights ! 
Set  back  the  clock  a  thousand  years : 
All  they  have  gained  now  disappears, 
And  the  dark  ages  suddenly  return. 

You  that  let  loose  wild  death, 
And  terror  in  the  night — 
God  grant  you  draw  no  quiet  breath, 
Until  the  madness  you  began 
Is  ended,  and  long-suffering  man, 
Set  free  from  war  lords,  cries,  "Let  there  be  Light." 

— Henry  Van  Dyke. 

God  is  over  all,  and  always  is  a  truth  generally 
understood.  Another  quotation  is  often  referred  to. 
Truth  crushed  to  earth  will  rise  again,  as  truth  is  the 
"salt  of  the  earth."  You  scarcely  can  look  for  relief 
from  heaven  from  the  Highest  if  you  have  no  part 
and  parcel  of  true  verity. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  31 

The  despised  Quaker  was,  two  hundred  years  ago, 
a  subject  of  ridicule,  even  murder,  among  those  who 
said  he  had  no  rights  a  white  man  is  bound  to  respect. 
Because  he  had  "no  religion/'  as  decided  in  Oxford 
University — sentiment  of  the  elect  in  all  aristocratical 
religious  assemblies,  not  only  in  the  mother  country, 
but  here  in  America  among  the  "Puritans."  Ancestors 
of  our  Abraham  Lincoln  came  hither  with  William 
Penn,  and  settled  in  Pennsylvania.  Among  late  can- 
didates for  President  of  the  United  States  were  found 
four  or  five  of  the  descendants  of  the  Quakers  coming 
hither,  one  of  whom  was  President  Harding.  As  is 
well  known,  that  active  world-war  food  provider 
abroad,  another  Quaker,  Hoover,  is  now  an  active 
member  in  the  U.  S.  Cabinet.  In  several  colonies,  in 
the  time  of  the  Revolution,  the  staid  Quakers  in  poli- 
tics retired  from  active  life  because  of  their  unwaver- 
ing peace  principles. 

While  Lincoln,  of  Quaker  descent,  in  1861-5  was 
President,  slavery  in  our  government  of  the  United 
States  was  abolished.  When  the  late  world-war  came 
to  a  close,  our  "Quaker"  President  called  a  World 
Congress  together,  that  met  in  Washington,  and  was 
honored  by  delegates  from  European  and  other  gov- 
ernments, all  earnestly  bent  on  securing  peace  for  the 
world  powers  universally  and  by  united  effort.  The 
ambitions  that  hitherto  governed  a  fighting  world 
should  have  been  of  "sterner  stuff" — but  God  rules! 
Church  members,  when  on  the  wrong  side — the  side 
of  war — must  be  reformed,  converted  to  the  truth  of 
God  and  wise  efforts  of  the  Greatest  Prophet.  Even 


32  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

one  of  our  best  generals,  in  efforts  to  put  down  slav- 
ery, 1861-5,  said  War  is  Hell! 

Like  the  winds  of  the  sea  are  the  ways  of  fate, 

As  we  voyage  along  through  life ; 
'Tis  the  set  of  the  soul  that  decides  the  goal, 

And  not  the  calm  or  the  strife. 

— Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox. 

Can  there  be  a  war  in  heaven — Milton  says  "out- 
side"— also,  as  asserted  in  the  scriptures  of  John?  My 
claim  elsewhere  written  is  that  scriptures  wrongly 
written  have  tended  to  abate  spirituality.  A  general 
cry  goes  up  among  reverends  in  any  war,  just  or  un- 
just, to  encourage  fighting.  The  preacher  fights  with 
his  mouth,  as  the  saying  is,  harmless  because  gunless. 

Put  up  thy  sword!  was  a  true  spiritual  edict  of  a 
Great  Savior,  for,  as  I  cited  of  the  Quaker,  the  man 
of  peace,  the  world  must  have  spirituality  up  to  that 
point  when  all  the  rebirths  to  earth  can  be  secure  from 
war.  The  promise  to  the  righteous  of  soul  every- 
where, in  all  times.  How  can  any  with  the  least  taint 
of  combativeness  rest  in  the  final  state,  home  for  all 
the  distressed  of  earth,  except  we  become  as  little  chil- 
dren, as  the  true  assertion  is.  Who  is  keeping  us  out 
of  heaven,  the  final  rebirth,  after  so  many  trials, — 
except  ourselves!  That  One  Place  of  Peace,  after  buf- 
ferings through  the  ages,  will  be  free  from  jarring 
sectarianism,  mistakes  between  mating  couples,  am- 
bitions for  place  of  power,  and  all  other  meannesses 
"flesh  is  heir  to"  will  be  driven  from  our  human  na- 
tures. No  holy  water  referred  to,  but  that  baptism  of 
the  spirit  that  long  has  been  named  bathing  in  the  spir- 
itual Lake  of  Lethe,  where  the  earth-chain  is  severed, 
and  the  path  starts  anew ! 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  33 

Our  Christian  religion  was  an  association  of  war- 
ring elements  from  the  beginning.  The  Lion  of  Judah 
associated  with  the  Lamb  of  God — the  democratic 
Jesus,  greatest  of  all  the  Jewish  prophets,  yoked  with 
the  bearers  of  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant. 

The  Bible  says,  in  reference  to  Jesus,  that  in  His 
early  manhood  He  was  called  to  discuss  affairs  of  the 
soul  with  His  people's  doctors  of  divinity,  similar  in 
station  to  our  worthies  of  the  same  rank,  chief  priests, 
doctors  of  divinity,  etc. 

Jesus  was  a  superior  personage,  evidently  possessing 
great  intelligence.  He  would  have  educated,  converted 
His  people  to  become  an  age  of  reason ;  but  as  He  said 
just  before  they  secured  His  destruction  on  the  Roman 
cross,  "I  would  have  gathered  thee,  as  a  hen  gathereth 
her  chickens  under,  her  wing,  but  ye  would  not/' 

A  like  dissimilarity  of  views  was  noticeable  while 
Saxon  orthodoxy  in  religions  was  governing  England 
in  the  17th  century.  One  case  in  point  was  that  of 
youthful  but  serious  George  Fox,  founder  of  Quaker- 
ism. Desiring  priestly  help  in  his  religious  difficulties, 
he  went  to  a  priest,  as  he  says  in  his  Journal,  for  ad- 
vice. The  priest's  advice  to  him  was  "Run  with  the 
girls,  and  chew  tobacco."  Before  the  imprisonments 
of  George  Fox  ended  in  his  death,  he  founded  the 
Society  of  Friends  (Quakers),  to  whom  I  make  refer- 
ence elsewhere. 

Jesus,  as  the  Bible  states,  after  church  orthodoxy 
had  done  its  deadliest  of  work,  cried  out  from  the 
cross,  O  ye  generation  of  vipers !  In  the  cruelties  of 
religious  persecutions  under  "Christians,"  followers  of 
Jesus  and  others  since, — drawing  and  quartering, 


34  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

burning  alive, — as  was  the  case  with  a  false  "witch" 
charge  against  the  heroic  Maid  of  Orleans,  and  are 
we  yet  clear  of  persecutions,  and  "O  ye  generations 
of  vipers/' — as  the  words  of  a  very  great  prophet  said 
of  the  same  savagery  of  the  Sanhedrin. 

Very  wisely  our  colonies  forming  a  United  States 
prohibited  all  union  of  Church  and  State  as  a  form  of 
our  government.  Wisdom  of  our  republican  form, 
under  men,  not  the  least  of  them  to  be  classed  as 
'Vipers/'  can  very  readily  be  distinguished  in  compari- 
son from  almost  all  other  nations  today,  as  our  United 
States  leads  all  in  culture,  in  wealth,  and  in  sentiments 
of  freedom,  education  and  religious  toleration. 

It  comes  with  our  nature  to  recognize  the  fittest,  for 
it  has  been  a  long  time  since  devil  worship.  It  is  not 
in  man  to  perform  miracles;  he  may  only  do  tricks. 
When  Jesus  said,  Go  into  thy  closet  (for  prayer)  to 
have  access  to  the  Presence,  He  evidently  meant  the 
spiritual  communion  alone,  and  wordless,  of  course. 
"He  will  reward  thee  openly/'  This  applies  to  us  who 
ask — not  in  any  free-will  mockery.  Your  inventors 
of  any  manner  of  useful  things  seek  this  silent  ap- 
proach. Could  any  inventor  get  his  inspiration  by 
frequenting  places  where  are  mere  noise,  or  amusing 
antics  ? 

Flammarion,  the  star-gazer,  poet  and  mystic,  has 
issued  a  book  of  soul-searching  import.  I  take  the 
following  extract  from  it :  After  admitting  that  spirit 
and  matter  are  forces  in  unity  everywhere,  it  says: 
Cosmic  dynomism  rules  the  worlds.  Newton  gave  it 
the  name  of  attraction.  If  there  were  nothing  but  at- 
traction in  the  universe  the  stars  would  form  only  one 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  35 

mass,  for  it  would  have  brought  them  together  long 
ago,  in  the  beginning  of  time.  There  is  something 
else !  Vital  dynomism  governs  all  beings.  In  man,  as 
he  has  evolved,  psychic  dynomism  is  constantly  associ- 
ated with  vital  dynomism.  At  bottom  all  these  dyno- 
misms  are  one — it  is  the  spirit  in  nature,  deaf  and 
blind  as  far  as  we  are  concerned  in  the  immaterial 
world ;  and  even  in  the  instinct  of  animals ;  unconscious 
in  the  majority  of  human  works — conscious  in  a  small 
number.  Matter  vanishes;  the  universe  is  an  intelli- 
gent principle." 

This  is  as  good  a  guess  as  yet  proclaimed,  for  in 
earliest  scriptures  is  admitted,  Ye  have  not  seen  God 
at  any  time. 

The  song  of  the  reaper  has  a  thought  of  home  in 
sight;  a  lad  on  the  sea  will  feign  seasickness  when  it 
is  homesickness.  Wars  on  land  or  on  sea  are  wreckers 
of  home,  and  the  dazed  brain  of  a  tramp  comes  of  his 
flight  from  home  and  its  innocence — his  father's 
house.  Lately,  in  the  Arroyo  meadow  trees,  I  heard 
though  the  night  joyful  songs  of  home — a  mocking 
bird's  gentle  singing,  and  knew  it  was  for  his  patient, 
sitting  mate.  Then  near  me  other  music  of  a  human, 
a  love  song  for  the  children.  Songs  of  this  kind  make 
for  the  beautiful  and  happy  feelings  of  all  the  living; 
an  opposite  in  polarity  takes  you  afar  from  the  tree  of 
life  and  love.  Even  very  gypsies  will  stand  together 
and  cherish  one  another  through  the  centuries  if  they 
are  not  aquit  of  the  song  of  songs  they  heard  in  deserts 
many  centuries  ago.  The  Father  of  Life  gave  the 
home  for  bird  or  beast,  or  man,  and  those  reborn  to 
earth,  hearing  the  voice  of  God  always  will  need  not 


36  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

be  fearful  of  darkness,  or  divorce,  wars,  or  carnage,  or 
thieves,  if  you  are  fighters  for  the  right,  for  home. 

President  Harding,  we  have  noted  elsewhere,  re- 
ceives much  criticism  in  English  quarters,  because  he 
doesn't  know  good  English.  Below  I  copy  from  a 
late  address  to  students  a  fair  specimen  of  the  way 
this  sinner  uses  the  American  language :  Declaring  that 
almost  nothing  remains  secure  today  from  the  attacks 
of  iconoclasts.  Our  President  appealed  to  the  gradu- 
ating classes  of  the  nation's  universities  and  colleges  to 
dedicate  themselves  to  an  unselfish  service  in  the 
preservation  of  civilization. 

"We  look  to  this  month's  graduating  classes/'  said 
the  President,  speaking  at  the  commencement  exer- 
cises of  the  American  University,  "to  provide  far  more 
than  their  numerical  share  of  leaders  for  the  nation  in 
a  future  not  far  ahead. 

"The  nation  must  constantly  be  on  its  guard  against 
the  tendency  to  tear  down  established  institutions 
before  a  plan  of  reconstruction  had  been  devised. 

"After  all,  unsatisfactory  as  some  earnest  people 
regard  the  present  structure  of  society  and  existing 
human  relationships,  a  reasonably  conscientious  world 
has  been  a  long  time  traveling  far  on  the  road  toward 
as  ideal  conditions  as  it  now  has  reached.  History 
has  afforded  many  illustrations  of  societies  crumbling 
and  going  to  pieces,  and  the  process  has  invariably  been 
attended  with  superlative  disaster  to  great  masses  of 
humanity. 

"It  is  a  commonplace  that  at  this  time  the  world 
stands  on  the  brink  of  what  looks  very  like  a  precipice. 
It  must  not  be  allowed  to  take  the  fatal  plunge.  It 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  37 

will  not  if  it  shall  be  able  to  summon  to  its  leadership 
in  the  coming  generation  men  and  women  who  will 
unite  a  necessary  measure  of  conservative  purpose  with 
an  equally  necessary  portion  of  willingness  to  con- 
sider new  expedients,  to  test  out  formulas,  to  apply 
the  acid  test  even  to  what  we  have  learned  to  believe 
is  pure  gold." 

In  our  war  for  the  Union,  and  incidentally  to  put 
down  the  Southern  and  English  aristocracy,  1861-5, 
we  noted  that  the  free  press  was  non  est  inventu  with 
our  enemies.  Comic  Punch  only  punched  as  the  aris- 
tocrats bid  it  "be  funny."  After  the  war,  it  was  too 
serious  a  concern  for  those  against  Liberty  to  see 
much  fun  in  anything.  Elsewhere  in  this  book  an 
extract  from  poem  by  Thomas  Taylor  of  England 
(Tom  Taylor  in  good  English),  will  enlighten  the 
reader  about  English  aristocratical  opinions  of  Lin- 
coln. 

"Serene,  I  fold  my  hands  and  wait, 

Nor  care  for  wind,  nor  tide,  nor  sea ; 
I  rave  no  more  'gainst  Time  or  Fate, 

For  lo !  my  own  shall  come  to  me. 

"I  stay  my  haste,  I  make  delays, 

For  what  avails  this  eager  pace? 
I  stand  amid  the  eternal  ways, 
And  what  is  mine  shall  know  my  face." 
— John  Burroughs. 

Saddest  of  mortals  that  ever  lived  were  friends 
probably  of  those  who  were  stricken  from  life  here 
in  their  early  years.  Surely  we  all  would  welcome 
their  return.  An  ever-loved  one  in  all  the  Christian 
centuries  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  This  primate  of 
all  prophets,  when  his  young  life  was  taken  in  torture 
on  the  cross  at  behest  of  phenatics,  he  despairingly 


38  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

cried,  My  God,  hast  thou  forsaken  me?  Best  beloved 
of  English  poets,  Keats,  in  his  great  gloom  and  disap- 
pointment (he  died  in  early  years  of  consumption) 
said,  My  name  is  writ  in  water!  The  best  possibly 
of  our  southern  bards,  Dunbar,  in  a  sad  but  beautiful 
poem  affirmed,  "I's  lone  and  in  distress/'  He  was 
stricken  by  consumption  when  a  mere  youth. 

Could  anyone  make  suggestion  of  a  more  hopeful 
theory  for  humanity  than  that  in  this  my  book. — A 
never-ending  Circuit-of  Being,  where  the  loved  and 
lost  could  be  restored,  to  gladden  the  generations  of 
the  earth-born?  Precious  lives  of  great  ones,  never 
forgotten  ones,  who  could  again  spread  comforting 
words  of  hope,  words  ever  to  be  remembered,  and 
thus  to  better  help  and  cheer  all  generations. 

With  falcon-wings  have  flown  the  two-score  years 

Since  here  I  trod  the  heights,  yet  now  I  gaze 

Entranced,   for  that  blue  lonliness  betrays 

No  age, — like  some  perpetual  bride  who  bears 

Unfading  wreaths  of  bloom,  it  yearly  wears 

Fresh  garlands  woven  of  cerulean  haze; 

These  dreamy  hills  well  loved  in  happier  days, 

Seem  even  lovelier  as  my  twilight  nears. 

Tense  life  hath  taken  her  relentless  toll, 

For  to  myslf  I  turn,  and  see  the  truth 

Furrowed  upon  my  brow,  and  in  the  soul 

Deep  scars :  Corrosive  Time  hath  wrought  the  change ; 

And  yet  yon  blue,  insensate  mountain  range 

Defies  mutation  with  perennial  youth.     *     *     * 

Each  eve  I  perish  on  my  sumptuous  pyre, 
Yet  every  morn  my  bright  renascence  brings 
Innumerous  orbs  to  illume  the  rolling  earth — 
When   I,   at   dusk,   withdraw   from  view  of  men, 
But  star  and  planet  never  meet  my  sight: 
I  am  that  Splendor  of  primeval  birth, 
Which  flushed  the  dawn  of  Chaos,  and  since  then 
For  me — till   systems  crash — there  is  no  Night. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  39 

I  loved  the  Day,  but  now  the  dark  Night  clings 
Close  to  my  soul.     Lo,  through  the  evening  air 
Night  comes, — naked  and  pure — divinely  fair — 
Slow  floating  downward  on  those  brooding  wings ! 
She  is  the  Dove  of  Darkness,  and  she  brings 
The  olive,  Peace,  into  the  Tents  of  Care : 
Oh,  let  the  raven  mystery  of  her  hair 
Enshroud  me  with  occult  imaginings ! 
O,  Night,  if  thou  art  beautiful  as  this, 
Let  thine  arms  fold  me  till  my  passing  breath 
Dies  into  dreams  wherein  the  Spirit  rests : 
Numb  me  with  rapture  of  Thy  Lethean  kiss. 

—Lloyd  Mifflin. 

Belief,  no  doubt,  began  with  the  notion  oj:  failing 
power  of  argument  or  assertion.  Since  the  Christian 
age  and  periods  of  better  education,  we  have  had  less 
of  Thus  saith  the  Lord.  I  remember  well  when  in 
protracted  meetings  for  conversion,  to  hear  in  ser- 
mon and  song,  "Only  believe  and  you  will  be  saved. " 

Early  references  can  not  be  found  in  the  Bible,  I 
presume,  of  reincarnation — because  there  was  no  full 
faith  in  immortality.  Our  New  Testament  and  else- 
where, catching  the  truth  of  a  Hereafter,  taught  by 
the  great  Prophet,  abounds  in  the  spiritual  concept 
entire  and  not  of  idol  worship.  We  find  a  story  of 
Jonah  in  the  Jewish  scriptures,  that  does  not  refer  to 
the  Spirit — for  Jonah  had  merely  made  his  temporary 
earthly  domicil  in  the  whale's  belly.  Theologians  since 
time  of  the  murder  of  Jesus  have  the  fact,  (little  they 
understand  it!),  how  education  has  improved — 
through  belief  in  miracles  being  lost  sight  of — so  such 
ones  as  that  about  Jesus  even  are  out  of  date ;  where 
he  turned  crystal  clear  water,  at  a  wedding  carousal, 
into  wine !  This  foolish  miracle  was  of  the  order  of 
the  Jonah  story. 


40  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

From  the  good  work  women  of  the  societies  and 
others  accomplish,  I  may  well  advocate  that  there  is 
no  Supreme  Spirit  having  male  sex,  and  I  affirm  that 
without  woman's  help  theology  long  ago  would  have 
collapsed.  God,  He;  God,  She, — seems  very  ridicu- 
lous except  to  thoughtless  priests.  Before  the  male 
supremacy  here,  or  hereafter,  had  any  lodgment  in 
beliefs,  there  was  in  very  ancient  times  a  woman  god. 

Nurse  of  Eternity, 

Thy  bosom  feeds  the  sun; 
From  thine  eternity 

All  breasts  in  nature  run. 
To  thy  bright  Light  we  turn 

All  other   gods  to  spurn ! 

Modern  philosophy  may  require  better  common 
sense,  to  fix  in  our  minds  a  fact  (?)  that  beams  of 
light  have  any  zigzag  or  other  unseen  course  from 
distant  spheres,  to  reach  us.  As  well  say  the  con- 
science or  higher  light  have  a  way  of  wabbling,  so 
that  you  do  not  get  your  true  measure!  In  what 
measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again, 
whether  of  laughter,  or  the  sunlight, — even  of  pota- 
toes (?)  you  will  require  the  full  measure. 

As  Bro.  Heald  relates  (see  Appendix)  a  heavenly 
body  of  our  own  system,  as  astronomers  affirm,  and 
name  Asteroid,  was  a  law-breaker  among  the  great 
bodies  of  the  universe,  so  was  flung  to  atoms.  A 
nature  criminal  giving  us  the  particles  attracted  to 
earth  called  meteorites,  etc.  Criminals  in  human 
society  are  entitled  to  punishment  surely  in  proportion 
even  as  a  law-breaking  star.  Life  of  Lincoln  was 
destroyed  by  one  of  the  creatures,  lower  than  a 
louse,  who  knew  not  any  human  sympathy.  Very 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  41 

pious  but  mistaken  people  advocate  forgiveness,  im- 
mediate conversion,  etc.,  so  go  to  jails  to  present  these 
lice,  flowers!  A  well-known  author,  Thos.  Taylor  of 
England,  in  a  poem  on  Lincoln's  burial,  at  a  time 
all  friends  of  humanity  or  democracy  were  mourning, 
had  these  words  of  stinging  reproach  for  the  Glad- 
stones and  other  English  aristocrats  who  were  wish- 
ing ill  of  our  republic.  I  quote  opening  lines : 

You  lay  a  wreath  on  murdered  Lincoln's  bier, 

You  who  with  mocking  pencil  wont  to  trace — 
Broad  for  the  self-complacent  British  sneer, 

His  length  of  shambling  limb,  his  furrow'd  face, 
His  giant,  gnarled  hands,  his  unkempt,  bristling  hair 

His  gait  uncouth,  his  bearing  ill  at  ease, 
His  lack  of  all  we  prize  as  debonair; 

Of  power  or  will  to  shine,  of  art  to  please. 
You  whose  smart  pen  back'd  up  the  pencil's  laugh 

Judging  each  step  as  though  the  way  were  plain; 
Between  the  mourners  at  his  head  and  feet, 

Say,  scurrile  jester,  is  there  room  for  you? 

This  from  a  talented  Englishman,  whom  his  Saxon 
friends  called  Tom  Taylor — a  despiser  he  was  of  a 
title  from  aristocrats. 

Get  your  criminals  at  earliest  possible  moment,  and 
remove  them  from  sight  of  innocency ;  or  kill  them, — 
for  all  souls  passing  to  rebirth,  then  pure  as  babes 
again,  are  sure  of  another  chance  to  do  well.  In  youth 
most  of  us  were  taught  by  good  mothers  about  the 
Good  man  and  Bad  man.  You  could  have  no  better 
instructors  to  warn  of  opposite  polarities.  As  educa- 
tion will  augment  possibly  the  class  called  drones,  lit- 
tle higher  than  criminals,  they  should  be  treated  as 
our  Greatest  Prophet  did,  with  compassion ;  weak  and 
poor  you  help,  the  mere  animal  tricksters  you  ignore 
as  being  neither  good  nor  half-good.  Since  Sunday 


42  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

schools  were  started  by  educators,  we  have  compas- 
sionate, careful  lovers  of  youth  to  impart  and  explain 
real  helpful  knowledge.  Jesus  spent  no  hours  I  affirm 
in  biblical  nonentities,  but  his  teachings  were  very  help- 
ful. "Behold  the  lilies  of  the  field."  "The  sparrow 
can  not  fall  to  the  ground' '  without  His  notice.  I 
would  suggest  a  work  like  that  helpful  book  of  Cali- 
fornia Useful  Plants  for  this  state.  It  is  full  of  in- 
struction, giving  pleasure  to  brainy  youth.  I  remem- 
ber near-childhood  incident  of  an  uncle  carrying  me 
to  the  pens  outside — a  new  phase  of  active  life  to  me. 
The  compassionate  Lincoln  had  long  grief  when  his 
father  sold  his  pet  little  pig !  A  truly  American  poet, 
Paul  L.  Dunbar,  says: 

Da  rain  done  hid  de  mountain's  fo'm, 
De  trees  is  bendin'  in  de  sto'm, 

Fs  lone  and  in  distress. 
But  listen,  dah's  a  voice  I  hyeah, 
A-sayin'  to  me,  loud  and  cleah, 

"Lay  low  in  de  wildaness." 

Look  not  outwards  but  inwards;  there  are  sure  no 
ideas  in  miracles.  There  now  is  belief  in  the  supreme 
spirit,  be  it  Law  or  be  it  Creator.  "There  is  no  god 
but  God,"  one  may  say  with  Mahomet,  another  can 
quote  Jesus,  another  Buddha. 

The  pose  naturally  of  a  tree,  on  any  part  of  earth, 
points  from  center  dark,  to  light  of  magnetic  or  sun 
force.  What  was  the  cult  called  Druidism,  coming 
evidently  from  tree  worship?  Origin  may  be  from 
fabled  Adam's  day  of  old,  before  the  fall  of  man 
even — he  fell  from  his  home  in  the  trees,  to  better 
himself  after  an  age  of  monsters  on  sea  and  land  as 
found  now  in  our  museums  but  articulated.  Great 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  43 

snakes!  from  Ireland,  driven,  as  was  Eve,  from  the 
better  land  of  Paradise,  where  the  Tree  of  Life  was 
blooming,  and  the  (forbidden)  Fruit  sickened  Adam, 
possibly  then  he  tried  stock  raising.  This  course  of 
the  Circuit  of  Life  on  earth,  that  fetches  us  time 
and  again  to  the  world  (in  rebirth)  is  traditional  and 
problematical.  And  from  pioneer  days  on  all  the  con- 
tinents, the  trees,  the  grass  and  the  flowers  should 
make  us  surely  lovers  of  Nature  in  all  its  ramifications. 

And  all  these  things  seemed  very  glad, 
The  sun,  the  flowers,  the  birds  on  wing 

The  jolly  beasts,   the   fury-clad 

Fat   bees,   the  flowers,   and   everything. 

But  gladder  than  them  all  was  I, 

Who  being  man  might  gather  up 
The  joy  of  all  beneath  the  sky, 

And  add  their  treasures  to  my  cup. 

And  travel  every  shining  way, 
Laugh  with  the  world  at  world's  delight 

Create  a  sphere  for  every  day, 
And  store  a  dream  for  every  night. 

— John  Drinkwater. 

Yale  Review  of  late  date  speaks  thus  of  an  English 
woman's  autobiography.  She  "has  no  sense  of  re- 
serve, no  passion  for  accuracy,  and  no  standard  of 
taste,  can  hardly  fail  to  write  an  entertaining  book 
for  England — and — more  timidly — the  United  States. 
.  .  .  It  is  a  story  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek, 
without  beginning  and  without  end. ....  She  shrank 
not  from  exposing  the  secrets  and  sensations  of  life/' 
A  good  bit  of  honest  criticism ! 


44  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

EAST  AND  WEST 

Men  look  to  the  east  for  the  dawning  things, 
For  the  light  of  the  rising  sun ; 
But  they  look  to  the  west,  to  the  crimson  west, 
For  a  view  of  the  things  that  are  done. 

For  the  eastward  sun  is  a  new  born  hope 
From  the  dark  of  the  night  distilled, 
But  the  westward  sun  is  the  sunset  sun, 
The  sum  of  a  hope  fulfilled. 

For  there  in  the  east  they  have  always  came   - 
The  cradle  that  gave  the  birth — 
To  all  the  hopes  of  the  hearts  of  men, 
To  all  the  hopes  of  the  earth. 

For  there  in  the  east  a  Christ  arose, 

And  there  in  east  there  gleamed 

The  dearest  dream  and  the  clearest   dream   ( 

That  a  prophet  ever  dreamed. 

But  into  the  waking  west  they  came 

With  the  dream-child  of  the  east, 

And  they  found  the  hope  they  had  hoped  of  old 

A  htousandfold  increased. 

For  there  in  the  east  we  dreamed  the  dream 
Of  the  things  we  hoped  to  dp, 
But  here  in  the  west,  the  crimson  west, 
The  dreams  of  the  east  came  true. 

How  do  we  get  civilized  and  away  from  barbarism, 
*f  not  through  being  born  again?  Christian  belief 
as  to  Jesus  and  others  whose  blessed  work  for  less 
civilized  mortals,  gave  us  clues  for  betterment.  It  has 
surely  depended  upon  rebirth,  as  all  our  instincts  point 
directly  to  former  denizens  of  earth,  before  the  print- 
ing press  was  thought  of,  or  even  earlier  stories  of 
creation  were  handed  down.  Discoverer  of  America 
had,  as  recorded,  a  firm  instinctive  faith  as  to  new 
continent.  Peoples  of  the  East  were  famous  naviga- 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  45 

tors  and  no  doubt  Columbus  was  under  this  inheritance 
from  Phoenician  or  Greek  life  lived  long  ago.  In 
Spain  or  among  Druids  were  no  such  leading.  In- 
heritance means  that  which  inheres,  aside  from  real 
estate  affairs,  for  Shakespeare  says,  "It  is  to  enclose 
as  in  a  funeral  monument,  traditions" ;  or  as  Raleigh 
says  to  have  inherently.  If  the  earth  is  for  real  estate 
owners,  why  is  its  surface  so  given  to  the  waters? 

Oliver  Lodge,  a  learned  spiritualist  of  the  true  order, 
already  has  a  vast  following — many  from  communing 
with  unseen  spirits  as  though  heaven  and  earth  were 
one.  To  what  region  will  Jesus  next  come:  to  lands 
of  his  former  work  and  agonies,  still  in  control  of 
autocrats,  popes,  kings  and  Kaisers,  who  hated  him,  or 
more  sensibly,  to  those  of  the  loving  kind,  the  poor 
in  heart  who  will  gladly  receive  him?  The  principles 
of  equity  and  helpfulness  that  Jesus  taught  are  in 
the  very  foundations  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  and  signs  of  the  times  point  to  the  triumph 
of  the  republicanism  that  means  equity,  equality  of 
rights. 

Nor  shall  I  deem  His  object  served, 

His  end  attained,  His  genuine  strength  put  forth 

While  only  here  and  there  a  star  dispels 

The  darkness.     .    .    .     When  the  host  is  out 

At  once  to   the  despair  of   Night 

When  all  mankind  alike  is  perfected — 

Equal  in  full-bloom  powers, — then  not  till  then, 

I  say  begins  Man's  general  infancy. 

— Browning. 

Reader,  did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  Heaven  may 
be  in  our  midst  unseen?  This  surely  would  shorten 
the  Circuit  of  Being.  For  ages  we  have  had  so-called 
spirit  rappings,  communications  with  unseen  ones;  by 


46  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

priests,  ministers,  mediums,  etc.  We  know  that  as  God 
is  spirit,  no  one  has  seen  Him  at  any  time ;  time  being 
a  material  concept.  What  is  coming  from  hell  or  the 
devil — negative  of  the  Great  Spirit — is  not  known. 
Have  we  ever  had  an  age  of  miracles?  I  think  not, 
for  Law  can  never  lie  dormant,  if  from  God :  spirit 
never  sleeps.  To  get  a  better  advertiser  was  the  need 
in  theology  a  few  centuries  after  Jesus  had  been  killed 
by  the  fanatics.  Make  a  noise,  call  out  the  lo  heres 
and  lo  heres;  so  the  miracles  were  revamped  from 
uses  in  barbarism  of  olden  times.  Jesus  taught  high- 
est philosophy. 

There  is  cause  and  effect  in  everything — in  natural 
way  of  course ;  so  when  clouds  move  because  heat  has 
to  do  with  it,  and  the  electrical  disturbances  must 
likewise  be  governed ;  then  at  man's  behest  if  anything 
must  stand  still  in  Nature  [as  the  sun  is  reported, 
while  a  fight  lasted,  over  the  valley  of  Ajalon]  the 
reporter  may  have  been  drinking  a  drop  too  much 
or  was  asleep. 

It  is  well  known  to  intelligent  readers  that  reincar- 
nation is  one  of  man's  earliest  beliefs.  ,A11  ancient 
writings,  including  the  Scriptures,  have  frequent  refer- 
ence to  it — being  born  again.  In  fact,  devout  Chris- 
tians and  of  all  religions  down  to  lowest  level  of  cul- 
ture, daily  pray  and  act  under  this  belief. 

In  Matthew,  11:15,  of  our  New  Testament,  is  this: 
And  from  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist  until  now, 
the  kingdom  of  heaven — [likely  was  meant  the  Holy 
Land  of  the  Jews] — suffereth  violence — [Jewish  na- 
tion, conquered  by  the  Romans] — and  men  of  violence 
take  it  by  force;  for  all  the  Prophets  and  the  Law 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  47 

prophesied  until  John.  And  if  ye  are  willing  to  re- 
ceive it,  THIS  is  ELIJAH  [Jesus]  which  is  to  come.  He 
that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear.  *  *  *  For  John 
came  neither  eating  nor  drinking,  and  they  say,  he 
hath  a  devil.  The  Son  of  Man  came  eating  and  drink- 
ing, and  they  say,  Behold  a  gluttonous  man  and  a  wine- 
bibber,  a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners!  And  wis- 
dom is  justified  by  her  works/' 

In  Malachi,  "Behold  I  will  send  you  Elijah  the 
prophet  [by  rebirth]  before  the  great  and  terrible  day 
of  the  Lord  come;  and  he  shall  turn  the  heart  of  the 
fathers  to  the  children;  they  to  their  fathers,  lest  I 
come  and  smite  the  earth  with  a  curse." 

Luke  1:17,  And  he  shall  go  before  his  face  in  the 
spirit  and  power  of  Elijah  to  turn  the  hearts  of  the 
fathers  to  the  children,  and  the  disobedient  to  walk 
in  the  wisdom  of  the  just  to  make  ready  for  the  Lord 
a  people  prepared  for  Him. 

Matthew  17:12.  And  he  answered  and  said,  Elijah 
indeed  cometh  and  shall  restore  all  things:  but  I  say 
unto  you,  that  ELIJAH  is  COME  ALREADY,  and  they 
knew  him  not,  but  did  unto  him  whatsoever  they 
listed.  Even  so  shall  the  Son  of  Man  suffer  of  them. 

John  1 :23.  What  sayest  thou  of  thyself?  He  said, 
"I  am  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness. 
Make  straight  the  way  of  the  Lord,  as  said  Isaiah  the 
Prophet,  *  *  *  And  they  asked  him  and  said  unto 
him,  Why  then  baptized  thou,  if  thou  art  not  the 
Christ?  John  answered  them  saying,  I  baptizeth  with 
water ;  in  the  midst  of  you  standeth  one  whom  ye  know 
not,  even  him  that  cometh  after  me,  the  latchstring 
of  whose  shoe  I  am  not  worthy  to  unloose." 


48  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

This  prophecy  (or  introduction)  of  a  great  prophet, 
met  fulfilment, — after  a  great  many  centuries  of 
wrangling.  We  have  no  guide,  religious  or  govern- 
mental, that  would  govern  mortals  truer  than  the  ad- 
vice vouchsafed  by  Jesus.  I  quote  below  from  Charles 
Nordhoff's  Politics  for  Young  Americans. 

"I  believe  that  free  government  is  a  political  appli- 
cation of  the  Christian  theory  of  life;  that  at  the 
base  of  the  republican  system  lies  the  Golden  Rule; 
and  that  to  be  a  good  citizen  of  the  United  States  one 
ought  to  be  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  and 
to  believe  in  and  act  upon  the  teachings  of  Jesus.  He 
condemned  self-seeking,  covetousness,  hypocrisy,  class 
distinctions,  envy,  malice,  undue  and  ignoble  ambition, 
and  he  inculcated  self-restraint,  repression  of  the  lower 
and  meaner  passions;  love  to  the  neighbor,  content- 
ment, gentleness,  regard  for  the  rights  and  happiness 
of  others,  and  respect  for  the  law.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  vices  he  condemned  are  those  also  which  are 
dangerous  to  the  perpetuity  of  republican  govern- 
ment; and  that  the  principles  he  inculcated  may  be 
properly  used  as  tests  of  the  merits  of  a  political  sys- 
tem or  a  public  policy." 

A  poet  of  the  nimble  fancy  exclaims,  "How  won- 
derful is  sleep,  sleep  and  his  brother  death!"  Just 
as  are  your  perceptions,  keen  or  dull,  will  you  behold 
of  the  higher  life,  the  innocent,  unwordly  state  and 
condition  of  Jesus,  when  he  says  that  children  are  of 
the  spirit  that  will  be  prevalent  in  the  Hereafter.  You 
can  have  no  Heaven  without  this  spirit.  You  make 
your  conceptions  of  hell  theologically,  to  suit  your- 
self. No  one  here  can  tell  of  any  divisions,  physically, 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  49 

in  the  Hereafter — -of  Heaven,  Purgatory  or  Hell. 
These  are  earth-born.  An  eloquent  but  crafty 
preacher  can  add  to  his  possessions  in  his  sermon  by 
references  to  his  personal  "wants,"  say  a  piano,  if  in 
his  congregation  is  a  rich  musical  instrument  maker, 
by  broad  hints — so  that  "thrift  may  follow  fawning/' 
Evil  will  grow  upon  what  it  feeds — as  a  hog  fattens. 
A  servant  is  worthy  of  his  hire,  but  somehow  it  hap- 
happens  that  a  master's  eye  is  worth  two  of  his  hands. 
So  the  hypocrite  has  a  higher  recompense  (?)  than 
is  awarded  a  mere  hog,  or  the  contrary. 

How  comes  it  that  we  know  neither  the  day  nor 
even  the  year  of  Jesus'  birth;  and  only  lay  claim  to 
December  25th  because  it  is  the  Winter  Solstice  and 
is  the  birthday  of  an  entire  host  of  Pagan  Gods,  all  of 
them  reputed  to  have  been  born  of  virgins : — Crishna, 
Buddha,  Mithra,  Isis,  Osiris,  Hercules,  Bacchus, 
Adonis,  and  dozens  more?  Is  it  all  coincidence ?  And 
is  it  a  mere  coincidence  that  the  rites  of  religion  as 
practised  now  were,  almost  entirely,  instituted  by 
Mithra,  five  hundred  years,  approximately,  before 
Jesus  was  born?  While  the  doctrines  of  election  and 
free  grace,  as  taught  by  Calvinism  and  Arminianism, 
could  never  be  harmonized  with  each  other,  with  rea- 
son, or  with  the  Bible,  yet  these  two  Bible  doctrines 
are  perfectly  harmonious,  seen  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  plan  of  the  ages.  In  view  of  God's  glorious  plans 
for  the  future,  what  must  be  the  attitude  of  every 
true  Christian  respecting  the  second  advent  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ — the  first  step  toward  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  long-promised  and  long-expected 


50  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

blessings  for  the  world  of  mankind? — Golden  Age, 
April,  1921. 

While  aristocracy  and  orthodoxy  (in  religion)  had 
dominacy,  a  democratic  form  of  government  was  im- 
possible. Even  in  our  American  colonies,  the  frenzy 
of  religion  became  so  rampant  that  under  the  Puritan 
rule,  in  New  Haven,  Conn.,  H.  Norton,  a  Quaker,  in 
1657,  was  sent  to  prison  for  preaching  the  Word  of 
God  as  he  understood  it,  and  later  flogged  cruelly  until 
citizens  interfered.  Then  he  was  branded  in  his  right 
hand  with  letter  H  (heritic)  and  sent  back  to  jail  till 
a  heavy  fine  should  be  paid.  A  stranger,  a  Dutch- 
man, out  of  compassion,  paid  the  fine.  Later,  Norton 
was  banished  from  among  the  Puritan  Elect.  John 
Milton  visited  Gallileo  in  prison,  in  Europe,  as  the 
two  were  heretics — agreed,  however,  on  question  of 
astronomy,  and  had  suffered  for  biblical  non-con- 
formity. 

Lest  the  sorcerer  entice 
With  some  other  new  device. 

Says  Milton.  These  two  were  compelled  by  imprison- 
ment and  threats  of  death,  to  keep  speechless  while 
inquisition  ruled. 

Since  the  Spaniards  first  in  America  raised  their  re- 
ligious banner,  the  Cross,  in  their  search  for  gold,  and 
Columbus  tried  a  trick  of  making,  for  profit,  slaves 
of  the  Aborigines  here,  it  seems  a  far  cry  to  the  real 
Christian  kind  of  government  we  have  now. 

I  refer  elsewhere  to  a  paper  in  the  Missionary  Re- 
view of  the  World,  written  by  Dr.  Eleanor  Taylor  Cal- 
verly,  formerly  of  York,  Pa.  The  writer,  now  a  resi- 
dent of  Kuweit,  Arabia,  says:  "Yes,  we  admit  there 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  51 

is  much  cruelty  among  the  Arabs;  they  are  no  mean 
workmen,  and  are  brave  in  war — suffering  silently  the 
pangs  of  death,  because  death  is  from  Allah.  They 
are  here  a  most  hospitable  people/' 

In  matters  of  the  gods  we  are  mostly  concerned  in 
the  Far  East.  Here  in  America,  a  land  of  freedom, 
our  spiritual,  progressive,  conceptions  are  different. 
Our  form  of  government,  republican,  opposes  the  old 
Eastern  tyrannies  in  any  shape :  our  own  Washington 
and  lovers  of  freedom  abroad — La  Fayette,  Steuben, 
Payne, — would  not  abide  under  aristocrasies  in  the 
eastern  world,  nor  religions  of  "Thus  saith  the  Lord/' 

The  trend  of  civilization  has  ever  appeared  west- 
ward. Our  first  president  of  the  United  States  advised 
us  to  keep  free  from  all  European  or  other  foreign 
alliances,  secular  or  religious  entanglements. 

Hindu  scriptures  have  hope  of  the  Prasna  Upanis- 
had,  1.10,  "that  they  who  seek  the  Atman  by  austerity, 
chastity,  faith  and  knowledge — they  do  not  return  in 
any  more  rebirths, — only  means  that  they  have  finally 
escaped  from  the  thralldom  of  reincarnations  by  being 
absorbed  into  God.  Throughout  the  thirteen  principal 
Upanishads  the  records  of  that  eager  quest  which  India 
has  been  pursuing  through  the  centuries,  which  is 
tersely  expressed  in  the  Brihad-Aranyaka  Upanishad 
in  its  first  division  (at  1,  3,  28)  : 

"From  the  unreal  lead  me  to  the  real, 
From  the  darkness  lead  me  to  the  light, 
From  death  lead  me  to  immortality." 

Not  being  an  educational  force,  Theology  is  losing 
ground,  and  the  Prince  of  Peace  gains,  in  an  en- 
lightened world. 


52  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Arabs  along  the  Red  Sea,  a  most  hospitable  people, 
are  far  from  being  free  from  sensuality  and  bigotry. 

Dr.  Eleanor  Taylor  Calverly,  graduate  of  Phila- 
delphia Woman's  Medical  College,  now  living  at  the 
Kuweit  Mission  in  Arabia,  writes  a  graphic  paper  to 
the  Missionary  Reviezv  of  the  World  about  her  neigh- 
bors. She  speaks  of  Arabs  as  being  very  hospitable,  and 
yet  sensual  and  cruel;  one  house  is  for  the  "mother/* 
the  other  is  for  "father's  wife/'  There  is  Moham- 
medan belief  in  the  evil  eye;  and  children  grow  up 
in  an  atmosphere  of  envy,  fear  and  hatred.  "Little 
Arab  sister,  with  sweet  olive-tinted  face  and  great 
wondering  brown  eyes,  is  a  playmate  of  the  doctor's 
little  daughter.  Disadvantages  of  Arab  children  are 
both  spiritual  and  mental ;  yet  there  is  something  that 
is  irresistible  in  the  wide-mouthed,  guileless  smile  of  a 
baby,  whether  he  be  white,  red,  brown,  yellow  or  black. 

Life  in  an  Arab  town  is  something  very  sordid. 
There  is  so  much  to  make  one  shudder,  so  much  to 
wring  one's  heart.  Then  there  is  also  the  monotony : 
sand,  sand,  sand! 

The  doctor  says,  "Our  little  daughter,  clad  in  pink 
rompers,  and  playing  in  the  sand,  was  happy.  Naima, 
our  daughter's  Arabic  name,  was  asked  by  her  play- 
mate, Hassa,  'Where  are  your  jewels?  You  have 
none?'  Naima  shook  her  head.  'Oh,'  cried  Hassa, 
'you  poor  thing.'  When  I  heard  Hassa  say  this  there 
came  to  me  a  vision  of  the  probable  future  of  these 
two  children.  I  saw  our  little  girl,  in  free  America, 
rolling  hoops  and  jumping  rope,  while  Hassa  was  se- 
cluded and  guarded  within  the  confines  of  her  home 
lest  she  be  seen  by  men.  Then  I  saw  our  little  one  a 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  S3 

few  years  later,  a  sweet  girl  graduate ;  then  Hassa,  14 
years  of  age,  would  be  spending  sleepless  nights  to  still 
the  crying  of  her  first-born  child.  I  saw  our  daughter 
walking  arm  in  arm  with  comrades  on  the  college  cam- 
pus; when  Hassa,  a  disappointed,  sad-eyed  woman, 
divorced,  re-married,  would  be  supplanted  by  a 
partner  wife." 

Of  all  the  land  far-famed  for  goodly  steeds, 

Thou  com'st,  O  stranger,  to  the  noblest  spot. 

Colonos,  glistening  bright, 

Where  evermore,  in  thickets  freshly  green, 

The  clear-voiced  nightingale 

Still  haunts  and  pours  her  song, 

By  purpling  ivy  hid.    *    *    * 

And  yet  another  praise  is  mine  to  sing, 

Gift  of  the  Mighty  God 

To  this,  our  city,  mother  of  us  all, 

Her  greatest,  noblest  boast, 

Famed  for  her  goodly  steeds, 

Famed  for  her  bounding  colts, 

Famed  for  her  sparkling  sea. 

— (Ediptis  at  Colonos. 

Above  I  quote  from  the  famous  Greek  author,  his 
hint  that  a  city  of  thy  desire  may  be  a  heaven,  of  de- 
light, for  the  once  and  evermore  denizen  of  earth.  If 
elsewhere  I  refer  to  the  "heaven-born"  of  Biblical 
times,  the  meaning  must  be  taken  as  earth-born.  Gods 
in  the  old  Grecian  times  were  said  to  have  marriage 
with  mortals.  Be  sure  there  is  mistake — they  have 
been  of  earth-birth.  Even  along  in  our  history,  in  an 
enlightened  Roman  period  of  the  New  Testament, 
Jesus  it  was  said  came  to  earth  fatherless  and  departed 
"in  a  cloud."  Let  us  hope  He  Himself  was  free  from 
trickery  of  the  pious  reporters  in  everything,  for  He 
braved  a  cruel  death  from  fanatics  to  do  unrivaled 
good  for  all  humanity. 


54  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Put  your  ear  to  the  ground,  as  the  saying  is,  for  we 
of  the  lowly  have  a  hearing  as  well  as  a  vision  out- 
wardly and  inwardly.  Sleep  and  Death  by  Shelley  are 
accounted  of,  similarly,  higher  than  by  the  outward 
senses.  You  who  have  vision  can  find  this  true.  After 
the  death  of  your  beloved,  then  beyond  the  human 
senses,  you  can  in  dreams  be  told — these  latter  are 
not  of  earth.  You  may  dream  of  helping  the  beloved 
one  still,  from  a  cramped  enclosure  as  earth,  and  then 
the  heavenly  smiles  reward  you.  While  mere  names 
of  earth  mates  will  not  recur,  yet  you  still  detect  the 
object,  knowing  no  names  can  reach  above  earthly 
condition.  Good  and  bad,  rich  or  poor  ,are  terms  for 
us  here.  Good  news  of  a  conscience  turns  up  now  and 
then ;  but  finally  death  grips ;  then  Higher  Light  is  too 
radiant.  "I  will  repay/'  An  eye  for  an  eye  is  the 
human  balance,  yet  the  higher  adjustment  sure  follows 
delinquency,  and  the  stumbling  over  conscience  of 
"Forgiye !  forgive ! !"  of  the  unworthy.  Justice  is  sure, 
and  sure  does  Fate  "Strike  once,  and  strikes  no  more/' 

EVELYN  HOPE 

BY  ROBERT  BROWNING 

Beautiful  Evelyn  Hope  is  dead ! 

Sit  and  watch  by  her  side  an  hour. 
That  is  her  book-shelf,  this  her  bed; 

She  plucked  that  piece  of  geranium  flower, 
Beginning  to  die,  too,  in  the  glass; 

Little  has  yet  been  changed,  I  think: 
The  shutters  are  shut,  no  light  may  pass 

Save  two  long  rays  through  the  hinges'  chink. 
Sixteen  years  old  when  she  died! 

Perhaps  she  had  scarcely  heard  my  name; 
It  was  not  her  time  to  love;  besides, 

Her  life  had  many  a  hope  and  aim, 
And  now  was  quiet,  now  astir, 


HIGHER  LIGHT  55 

Till  God's  hand  beckoned  unawares, — 

And  the  sweet  white  brow  is  all  of  her. 
Is  it  too  late,  then,  Evelyn  Hope? 

What  your  soul  was,  pure  and  true, 
The  good  stars  met  in  your  horoscope, 

Made  you  of  spirit,  fire  and  dew — 
And  just  because  I  was  thrice  as  old, 

And  our  paths  in  the  world  diverged  so  wide, 
Each  was  naught  to  each,  must  I  be  told? 

We  were  fellow  mortals,  naught  beside; 
No,  indeed !  for  God  above 

Is  great  to  grant,  as  mighty  to  make, 
And  creates  the  love  to  reward  the  love : 

I  claim  you  still,  for  my  own  love's  sake ! 
Delayed  it  may  be  for  more  lives  yet, 

Through  worlds  I  shall  traverse,  not  a  few: 
Much  is  to  learn,  much  to  forget, 

Ere  the  time  be  come  for  taking  you. 
But  the  time  will  come, — at  last  it  will, 

When  Evelyn  Hope,  what  meant  (I  shall  say), 
In  the  lower  earth,  in  the  years  long  still, 

That  body  and  soul  so  pure  and  gay? 
Why  your  hair  was  amber,  I  shall  opine, 

And  your  mouth  of  your  own  geranium's  red — 
And  what  you  would  do  with  me,  in  fine, 

In  the  new  life  come  in  the  old  one's  stead. 
I  have  lived  (I  shall  say),  so  much  since  then, 

Given  up  myself  so  many  times, 
Gained  me  the  gains  of  various  men, 

Ransacked  the  ages,  spoiled  the  climes; 
Yet  one  thing,  one,  in  my  soul's  full  scope, 

Either  I  missed  or  itself  missed  me: 
And  I  want,  and  find  you,  Evelyn  Hope ! 

What  is  the  issue?    Let  us  see! 
I  loved  you,  Evelyn,  all  the  while ! 

My  heart  seemed  full  as  it  could  hold: 
There  was  place  and  to  spare  for  the  frank  young  smile, 

And  the  red  young  month  and  the  hair's  young  gold. 
So,  hush, — I  will  give  you  this  leaf  to  keep; 

See,  I  shut  it  inside  the  sweet  cold  hand ! 
There,  that  is  our  secret,  go  to  sleep ! 

You  will  wake,  and  remember,  and  understand. 

McGroarty,  a  California  philosopher,  says:  There 
are  so  many  things  to  remember.  And  to  forget  the 
names  of  a  thousand  wonder  workers,  more  or  less, 


56  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

who  have  been  dead  so  long  that  it  is  time  for  them 
to  come  back  again — what  difference  does  it  make  ? 

Attributed  to  the  Great  Prophet,  Jesus,  is  the  say- 
ing :  "Take  no  thought  of  the  morrow — what  ye  shall 
eat  and  wherewithal  ye  shall  be  clothed."  Also  cease 
from  worry  now  over  "things  to  remember."  Suffi- 
cient unto  the  day  is  the  worry  thereof,  for  reaching 
the  higher  sphere,  there  are  no  time-tables  to  mark  in- 
tervals, as  here  on  earth,  in  reincarnations.  Shake- 
speare's Seven  Ages  of  Man  will  keep  you  busy  over 
wonder- workings ! 

Civilization  can  be  farther  traced,  thanks  for  that 
blessed  book,  the  Bible.  It  is  above  all  creeds,  all  na- 
tions, and  only  alert  is  its  hint  of  beginning  of  every- 
thing,— the  Spirit.  Let  us  consider  the  first  man,  irre- 
spective of  any  garden,  or  ship,  or  how  this  first  of 
the  race  was  clothed — not  being  so  favored  as  other 
animals  that  are  naked.  His  warmth  came  from  a  fig 
leaf  garment;  and  after  Adam  was  told  to  hustle  for 
himself,  then  his  ingenuity  suggested  the  suspenders 
for  this  fig  leaf;  his  first  invention,  possibly!  With 
an  eager  and  a  nipping  air,  he  became  a  bit  envious  of 
well-clothed  animals  he  looked  on  as  his  inferiors  "in 
the  sight  of  God,"  and  did  his  first  killing,  to  get  fur 
robes.  Why  should  Eve  not  have  had  attention  ?  Fe- 
males of  all  breeding  pairs  of  animals  have  better  care 
from  the  Creator,  in  the  innate  modesty  or  feature  of 
life-regulation,  than  has  man. 

What  a  long  and  unclean  or  brutal  struggle  our  race 
has  had !  Greeley,  our  wisest  editor,  wrote,  "Go  west, 
young  man !"  Both  to  the  north  and  to  the  south  the 
trend  of  population  seldom  goes,  for  the  end  of  these 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  57 

journeys  brings  torturing  cold.  Even  down  to  the 
days  of  a  free  Hebrew  race,  escaped  from  Egyptian 
bondage,  but  still  carrying  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant, 
the  people  rushed  to  new  wars,  bloody  wars,  very  like 
conquests  in  America  later,  when  the  Red  Man  had  to 
go.  Jews  wanted  the  territory  Jehovah  promised,  a 
Holy  land,  and  yet  even  unto  this  day  that  land  is  not 
very  promising. 

There  will  still  be  our  Sphynx  question:  Is  the 
world  better  or  worse  for  mankind?  Not  as  to  any 
one  feature.  God  is  no  respecter  of  special  life  in  the 
whole  kingdom  of  nature,  and  if  any  of  us  should  be 
so  child-trusting  as  to  ask  special  privileges  or  com- 
forts, we  may  (as  the  Bible  relates  to  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  immortality),  assert,  "Ye  think  ye  have  eternal 
life."  The  Creator  fills  no  stockings  for  children  at 
Christmas,  but  delegates  to  the  parents  and  friends  this 
loving  service.  If  the  agents  or  the  dear  little  ones  are 
untrue  to  a  soul's  trust,  how  can  they  trust  the  Unseen 
One?  If,  as  thy  child  believes,  thou  art  great  and 
noble  of  soul,  he  knows  no  mistrust  when  Christmas 
comes,  or  at  any  time.  Break  his  faith,  or  her  faith, 
and  mistrust  even  of  the  Greatest  Prophet  ensues, — 
when  that  truth  was  uttered  for  all  to  cheer  us.  The 
kingdom  of  God  is  within  you. 

There  is  a  straight  way  in  life  here,  a  straight  path 
that  leads  thee  later,  and  on  until  life  begins  here 
again  for  thee  on  earth;  and  if  home  is  the  heaven  of 
thy  desire,  this  next  birth  will  bring  to  thee  joy  over 
reunions,  and  the  new  home  will  have  transcendent 
phases  of  life,  more  life,  that  will  grow  better,  larger 
of  purpose  throughout  rebirths  innumerable. 


58  '  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

The  Very  Elect  is  not  voted  for  by  generality  of 
electors;  in  fact,  He  breathed  into  you  the  breath  of 
life,  and  in  that  condition  only  one  ballot  need  be 
taken.  We  must  take  into  the  account  Lo  here's !  and 
Lo  there's ! !  Had  we  Christians  a  unit,  there  would 
be  but  one  sect  to  interpret  the  Bible.  Lo,  too,  our 
many  denominations  of  Christians. 

A  little  girl  hit  on  a  great  truth  when  asked,  "Who 
made  you?"  "God  made  me  so  high; — I  growed  the 
rest/'  We  all  grow  more  or  less — some  very  bad, 
some  very  good.  Those  in  the  brutal  way,  loving 
strife;  others  as  Jesus  desires,  His  own  beloved. 

Let  us  hope  for  another  group  of  immortals  reborn 
here,  to  rebuild,  amplify  our  civilization,  and  to  do 
the  work  left  undone  by  the  murdered  Prophet,  in 
spreading  compassion  that  is  love. 

This  warning  for  young  aviators : 

Our  boy  Jeremire 

Dun  burnt  in  de  fire; 

His  airplane  drawed  de  sun. 

We  need  not  the  traditionally  pick-up,  story  of  af- 
fairs from  savagest  and  crudest  of  life,  in  the  early 
times,  when  good  men  of  Sodom  or  Gomorra  were 
as  rare  as  hen  teeth,  as  the  saying  is.  Report  is  that 
in  Jerusalem  today  are,  as  in  earlier  times,  rivalries 
and  fightings — mostly  over  religion.  "Great  is  Diana 
of  the  Epesians,"  great  is  Jehovah,  great  is  Moham- 
med, and  so  on.  One  clan  still  points  out  the  grave 
of  Adam,  which  excited  the  pious  (?)  humor  of 
Mark  II. 

A  common  saying  is,  "more  holy  than  righteous," 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  59 

and  has  ever  mortal  exhibited  the  qualities  that  truly 
belong  to  us  all  ?.  It  does  not  stand  to  reason,  for  we 
have  all  grades  in  hypocrisy.  Artemis  Ward  mistook 
for  a  common  preacher  (though  a  hypocrite  likely) 
and  who  appealed  to  the  humorist  with  eyes  cast 
heavenward — as  a  sign-manual.  Meeting  with  no  re- 
sponse, the  good  man  said,  "This  is  a  cold  world/' 
A.  W.,  sizing  the  man  up,  and-  having  no  Bible  at 
hand,  blurted  out,  "You'll  get  into  a  hotter  one  by  and 
bye;  hot  as  hell." 

No  fault  attaches  to  Bible  accounts,  so  valuable  for 
reference;  written  from  hearsay,  these  records  can  be 
construed  as  most  valuable  for  study — conceptions  of 
earliest  traditional  times.  You  must  not  take  Jacob 
and  his  wives  and  concubines  as  a  holy  example  now, 
for  life  today  if  examples  of  Scriptures  mean  for 
"instruction"  (example)  would  indicate  no  progress 
through  the  ages.  Jesus  surely  fought  and  opposed 
the  holy  ideas  in  olden  scriptures.  An  eye  for  an 
eye — and  saying  not  anything  of  reproof  in  the  scrip- 
tures about  holiness  of  holy  wars — "but  I  say  unto 
you,  love  one  another." 

I  am  not  psychoanalytic  nor  of  the  pious — the  very 
elect,  but  observe  from  all  past  experience,  we  do  not 
get  to  the  full  understanding  of  life  from  our  human 
nature.  Experience  of  religion  teaches  that  it  has 
much  of  impulsive  goodness,  formal  ceremonies  or 
actions  soon  forgotten.  Jesus  no' doubt  had  reference 
to  this,  religion  too  full  of  animal  magnetism,  for 
when  speaking  of  a  church  (his  was  the  open-air 
kind)  when  two  or  three  in  serious  mood  are  met 
together.  Then  the  higher  light  and  life  are  manifest, 


60  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

a  spirit  arises  that  .will  with  the  morning  stars  sing  in 
utmost  joy.  A  church  should  surely  have  the  educa- 
tional feature,  for  at  this  ripe  age  of  the  world  we 
may  drop  -notions  of  altars,  offerings  to  gods  (burnt 
or  otherwise). 

Rather  too  much  of  human  nature  is  exhibited  by 
school  authorities  in  selecting  teachers  (a  hint  also  to 
church  authorities),  the  employed  expecting  a  good 
time,  to  spend  between  the  movies  and  mental  con- 
cerns, as  the  "duties."  In  selecting  help  for  churches 
or  charities,  the  teachers  should  be  given  not  any  no- 
tions of  ease,  soft  snaps,  or  time  for  selfish  uses;  but 
select  the  most  competent  of  Good  Samaritans,  and 
not  from  mere  scholarly  or  pious  pretensions. 

This  is  an  age  of  action,  and  those  coming  in  a  re- 
birth to  take  again  some  part  in  human  affairs  must 
hustle.  No  more  of  the  loafing,  hold-up  dispositions 
"need  apply/'  must  go  as  the  scoffer  says,  to  hell — 
where  the  dark  of  polarity  belongs.  Times  change 
and  wre  with  the  times.  Now  great  shake-ups  from 
calamities  recently,  endured  from  prominence  of 
hatred  and  war. 

Our  President,  since  the  devil  dance  of  others,  has 
been  wise,  careful  and  patriotic.  With  our  Republic 
has  always  seemed  the  light  of  progress,  or  we  would 
now,  as  at  first,  be  in  chains  of  slavery  and  under  dic- 
tation of  lazy  autocrats  or  plutocrats. 

As  showing  the  new  trend,  in  America,  I  copy  from 
James  Oppenheim's  late  Times  essay : 

"When  its  meaning  is  revealed,  we  see  that  the  un- 
conscious wisdom  is  trying  to  tell  us  of  ourselves,  to 
reveal  our  real  trouble,  and  even  to  lead  us  to  a  solu- 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  61 

tion  of  the  difficulties.  .  .  .  What  does  one  know  of 
oneself?  Human  nature  is  a  rich  mystery,  for  not 
only  is  it  compounded  of  our  experience  and  our  gifts, 
it  is  also  inherited  from  the  remote  past.  In  each  of 
us  is  the  collective  unconscious,  the  racial  mind,  which 
contains  the  wisdom,  the  power,  the  greatness  of  the 
entire  past :  the  very  source  of  inspiration,  the  spring 
from  which  have  risen  all  our  arts,  inventions,  re- 
ligions and  sciences.  .  .  . 

"One  may  wonder  how  by  any  psychological  process 
one  may  come  to  this  deeper  insight.  One  cannot  do 
it  alone.  Maeder,  in  his  little  book  on  the  subject, 
likens  the  analytic  process  to  Dante's  'Divine  Comedy/ 
The  analyst  is  the  guide,  Virgil,  who  leads  the  patient, 
Dante,  first  down  through  the  inferno  of  his  hidden 
abysses  of  nature,  then  up  through  Purgatory,  the 
great  overcoming.  But  at  the  peak  of  the  Mountain 
of  Purgatory,  Virgil  gives  up  his  guidance,  and 
Beatrice  appears,  Dante's  own  soul,  now  to  lead  him 
up  through  the  paradise/' 


62  PHYSICAL  LIFE 


III 

When  Tolstoy  was  excommunicated  in  1901,  he 
addressed  the  Orthodox  Russian  Church  very  candid 
letters  as  to  his  belief  in  Jesus  and  the  Father  of  us 
all.  Said,  "Truth  more  than  all  else  in  the  world  he 
loved,  and  had  greatest  veneration  for  Jesus."  His 
later  years  were  spent  amidst  spies  of  the  church,  and 
very  many  pressing  offers  he  had  to  die  with  church 
prospects  for  salvation  at  last.  The  wife  of  Tolstoy 
was  evidently  sent  to  spy  on  him,  and  take  him  from 
his  prized  last  writings, — to  burn  such  has  long  been 
the  fashion  of  the  pious  vs.  infidels. 

From  a  recent  issue  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  I  copy 
a  Tolstoy  letter  of  October  23,  1910:  "I  am  a  very 
sinful  person,  and  my  only  occupation  consists  in 
mending  myself,  in  the  measure  of  my  power  and 
ability,  from  my  numerous  sins  and  sinful  habits.  I 
beseech  God  to  help  me  in  this  cause,  and  He  helps 
me.  Though  at  the  pace  of  a  turtle,  still  I  advance 
with  His  help.  In  this  advancing  I  find  that  the  sole 
sense  purpose  and  benefit  of  my  life.  The  kingdom 
of  God  is  within  us  and  the  kingdom  has  to  be  won 
by  force  (that  is,  by  effort).  I  believe  in  this,  and 
exert  all  possible  efforts  for  this;  and  here  you  come 
to  offer  me  the  performance  of  certain  rites  and  the 
utterance  of  certain  words,  which  would  show  that  I 
consider  as  infallible  truth  all  that  which  men  who  call 
themselves  Church  consider  truth,  and  in  consequence 
of  which  all  my  sins  would  be  pardoned — pardoned 
somehow  and  by  someone;  and  that  I  shall  not  only 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  63 

be  exempt  from  the  inner  hard — but  at  the  same 
time  joyous, — spiritual  work  of  self -improvement,  but 
that  I  shall* be  somehow  saved  from  something,  and 
shall  receive  some  kind  of  an  eternal  bliss. 

"Why,  dear  Brother  Dimitri,  do  you  address  me 
with  such  a  strange  proposal?  Have  I  tried  to  con- 
vert you,  have  I  counseled  you  to  rid  yourself  of  that, 
in  my  opinion,  pernicious  delusion  which  you  profess, 
and  into  which  you  painstakingly  lure  thousands  and 
thousands  of  unfortunate  children  and  common  peo- 
ple, perverting  their  minds?  Then  why  do  you  not 
leave  me  in  peace,  a  man  who,  by  his  age,  stands  with 
one  foot  in  the  grave,  and  who  calmly  awaits  his 
death?  My  conversion  to  the  church  faith  might  have 
had  sense  were  I  a  boy,  or  a  grown-up  atheist,  or  an 
illiterate  yakout  who  had  never  heard  about  the 
church-faith.  But  I  am  82  years  old,  was  brought  up 
in  the  very  same  deception  which  still  dominates  you, 
to  which  you  are  inviting  me,  and  from  which,  with 
greatest  suffering  and  efforts  I  freed  myself  many 
years  ago,  adopting  a  Christian — not  ecclesiastical — 
point  of  view,  which  gives  me  the  possibility  of  a 
peaceful,  joyous  life  directed  toward  self-perfection, 
and  the  readiness  for  as  peaceful  and  joyous  a  death, 
in  which  I  see  a  return  to  God  of  love,  out  of  whom  I 
issued  forth.  With  brotherly  love,  Leo  Tolstoy." 

Orthodox  church,  as  we  know,  has  ever  been  fore- 
most in  spreading  evil  reports.  If  hatred  as  so  often 
did  not  stop  short  of  cruelest  forms  of  murder,  for 
its  "enemies,"  independent  thinkers.  Our  own  lover 
of  liberty,  Thomas  Payne,  died,  as  evil  report  gave 
out,  a  drunkard,  who  wanted  to  confess  his  errors  in 


64  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

speaking  of  orthodoxy.  Equally  false  have  been  re- 
ports that  Tolstoy  was  maddened  by  his  unorthodox 
writings,  and  started  off  in  his  old  age  to  die  in  some 
unknown  wilderness.  The  letter  above  corrects  these 
reports. 

Possibly  the  worst  blunder  committed  in  the  history 
of  pious  sects  and  idolatry  in  early  ages,  was  in  hav- 
ing men  set  apart,  no  family  or  family  relations,  to 
attend  to  the  altars  of  the  gods.  As  the  Maker  of  us 
all  clearly  indicates  as  His  will  and  our  instincts  verify 
it,  sexes  cannot  be  apart,  and  children  in  all  homes 
have  a  clinging  to  and  almost  worship  of  the  parents. 
Babes  are  the  best  gift  of  mankind,  most  highly 
prized  by  all  surely.  Child-trust  and  innocence  are 
makers  of  true  character  and  worth.  Return  to  earth 
in  all  rebirths,  ever  rouses  the  sacredest  of  songs, 
"Glory  to  God  in  the  highest;  peace  on  earth;  good 
will  to  all  mankind/'  And  this  language,  and  song  of 
glory,  is  indicated  even  down  to  the  humblest  creatures. 

When  in  life's   common  ways, 

With  cheerful  feet  we  go; 
When  in  the  steps  we  tread 

Who  trod  the  ways  of  woe — 
Thou  that  once  on  mother's  knee 

Wert  a  little  one  like  me, 
Thou  hast  sent  me  here  to  be 

Born  of  human-kind  like  Thee, 
From  nature's  inmost  heart 

(The  final  film  withdraw!) 
Eternal  silence  reighs 

Bound  in   Eternal   Law 
It  is  enough:  we  ask  not  where  Thou  art, 

Present  in  space,  or  in  the  faithful  heart. 
Unchanging  Law  binds  all 

And  Nature's  law  we  see — 
Hope  of  those  that  have  no  other. 

— Palgrave. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  65 

Mark  Twain  and  many  others  have  toured  to  the 
Holy  Land,  to  get  sight  of  holy  relics.  Our  Mark  was 
shown  the  grave  of  Adam,  and  if  some  scriptural 
things  he  writ  about  in  the  Holy  Land  are  found — 
say  among  Mark  II  papers — maybe  valuable.  Photo 
of  that  grave ;  and  possibly  Mark  II  having  measured 
the  hole,  has  the  new  scripture  to  quote  how  the  holy 
dust  of  Adam  was  found !  He,  Mark  II,  an  American, 
knew  how  to  be  trusty,  having  sure  swallowed  Wash- 
ington hatchet  as  part  of  our  scripture. 

Can  any  value  the  sayings  of  Jesus  more  than  I? 
But  even  the  monk  reporting  was  human;  he  surely 
was  when  the  prayer  pleads  with  the  Father  of  us  all 
to  lead  us  not  into  temptation.  God  Almighty  does  no 
such  mischief.  In  the  scripture  of  truth  called  John, 
quoted  on  another  page,  his  record  of  wars  and 
rumors  of  wars  in  or  near  heaven  (possibly  had  ref- 
erence to  wars  between  Jews  and  the  conquering 
Romans).  It  seems  very  probable — scriptures  were 
pick-ups,  as  printers  call  fat-takes. 

After  Jesus  had  been  cruelly  murdered  as  a  rebel 
against  Romans,  and  his  spirit  passed  on  to  the  Great 
Path  of  being,  then  will  come  his  rebirth — possibly 
back  to  earth  to  now  receive  the  wonted  welcome  and 
not  again  have  to  curse  a  whole  generation  as  pre- 
viously— "Ye  generation  of  vipers !" 

They  stooped  in  the  gleam  of  the  faint  light,  Over 

The  print  of  themselves  on  the  limpid  gloom; 
And  she  lifted  her  full  palm  toward  her  lover, 

With  her  lips  prepared  for  the  words  of  doom. 
But  the  warm  heart  rose,  and  the  cold  hand  fell, 

And  the  pledge  of  her  faith  sprang,  sweet  and  clear, 
From  a  holier  source  than  the  old  saint's  well, 

From  the  never-ebbing  tide  of  Love — a  tear. 

— R.  D.  filackmore. 


66  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Sleep,  under  the  law  of  life,  as  alternating  with  the 
wakeful  period,  seems  a  polarity  existing  between 
everyday  existence  and  a  higher  life.  No  creature 
escapes  going  over  the  Path.  To  make  a  personal  ex- 
planation, will  refer  to  a  fact  occurring  in  March, 
1922.  I  received  notice  that  a  beloved  cousin  had  died 
after  long  illness,  at  Atlantic  City,  N.  J.  On  the  night 
succeeding  notice,  I  dreamed  of  her.  Passing  in 
dreamland  from  one  ocean  to  another,  I  detected 
cousin  in  a  position  requiring  help,  a  kind  of  trap. 
Rushing  to  help  her,  I  noted  very  distinctly  that  it  was 
a  gray  dress  she  wore.  The  vision  faded,  but  not  until 
her  joyful  looks  disclosed  that  she  was  far  from  hav- 
ing any  fear  in  her  peculiar  situation.  Writing  to 
brother  of  deceased  later,  wished  him  to  state  how  the 
sister  was  dressed  for  the  funeral.  The  reply  proved 
that  my  far-away  vision  in  sleep  was  correct !  As  a 
fact,  deceased  was  buried  in  a  gray  dress  exactly  cor- 
responding to  my  vision !  Had  one's  dream  followed 
the  circumstance  of  meeting  in  late  years,  no  surprise 
in  the  dream  could  occur.  But  here  is  a  fact  of  dis- 
tance and  unusual  sight — of  the  gray  dress;  thus  re- 
calling some  spiritual  agencies,  as  spoken  of  by  Plato 
and  Whitman — that  time  and  place  are  of  the  earth 
and  have  no  spiritual  bearing. 

Home  is  the  corner  stone  of  our  civilization,  says 
President  Harding.  We  may  read  of  any  land  of 
promise,  but  the  home  therein  is  the  great  concern. 
No  home,  no  heaven! 

By  a  theory  I  claim,  Rebirth,  we  shall  know  our 
promised  land  will  be  located  where  our  parents  and 
friends  have  been  or  are,  ever  next  us  with  love — in 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  67 

the  eternal  and  the  earthly  shapes.  We  know  our  own, 
as  Jesus  said  of  the  sheep  separated  thus  only  for 
a  while. 

"And  what  has  happened  to  the  colored  people  is 
that  there  are  those  among  them  who  have  acquired 
a  degree  of  culture  equal  to  that  of  any  race  on  earth. 
There  is  today  among  the  negroes  of  America  a  large 
class  that  has  placed  itself  beyond  the  sneers  of  negro- 
baiters  and  negro-haters.  For  that  class  the  "color 
line"  has  faded  away  forever.  The  people  of  that 
class  can  and  do  look  serenely  down  on  whomever  sets 
himself  up  as  a  mental  or  moral  superior. — /.  5*. 
McGroarty. 

Dr.  Maudsley  says,  "It  has  been  justly  remarked 
that  if  we  were  actually  to  do  in  sleep  all  the  strange 
things  which  we  dream  we  do,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  put  every  man  in  restraint  before  he  went  to  bed; 
for,  as  Cicero  said,  dreamers  would  do  more  strange 
things  than  madmen.  A  dream  put  into  action  must 
indeed  look  very  much  like  insanity  ( e.  g.  the  ordinary 
sleep-vigil),  as  insanity  has  at  times  the  look  of  a 
waking  dream." 

Somnambulists  act  without  any  visible  sense  of  direc- 
tion or  purpose.  I  had  an  uncle,  Caleb  Hood  of  Lan- 
caster County,  Pa.,  who  in  youth  often  climbed  upon 
a  high  roof  and  from  the  peak  was  alone,  star  gazing 
or  to  be  spiritually  alone  and  away  from  earth's  affairs. 
In  his  very  dangerous  climbing  he  was  never  hurt. 
His  father  was  epileptic. 

Hibernating  animals  have  the  instinct  to  sleep 
through  seasonal  intervals.  Securing  abundance  in 


68  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

days  of  plenty,  the  sleepy  animal,  the  fat  animal,  re- 
tires through  the  long  inclement  season  to  sleep. 

Body  is  not  anything  important;  so  cling  close  to 
the  everlasting  soul.  Sleep  is  the  near-soul  restorer, 
this  you  have  always,  but  now  and  they  only  a  rebirth, 
awhile  in  mortal  being  just  as  you  enjoy  changes  of 
day  and  night. 

"Every  man's  work  shows  what  god  he  serves, 
For  faith  is  a  path  without  any  curves. 
We  must  all  hear  our  master's  word  before  we  can  do ; 
Faith  will  come  by  hearing  him,  which  will  put  us  through." 

The  four  lines  we  quote  here  from  the  new  poetry 
have  more  of  good  sense  than  all  samples  of  sex- 
compositions  usually  do,  appearing  formless. 

It  is  a  long  while  since  the  sun  stood  still  at  Gibeon 
and  the  moon  at  Ajalon,  to  see  the  invading  Jews, 
ferocious  under  a  ferocious  leader,  Joshua,  drive  out 
of  their  homes  all  natives  in  the  Holy  Land  that  God 
Jehovah  had  promised  the  children  of  Israel.  Later 
on,  when  Hebrews  began  to  know  from  a  Higher  Light 
for  all  nations  that  called  by  Christians  the  Light  of 
Christ,  Jesus  the  compassionate  Jew,  He  prayed  for 
an  era  free  from  war. 

Education  not  stored  in  your  memory,  your  soul,  is 
surely  not  a  real  light.  Gods,  and  such  as  Joshua  the 
killer,  have  passed,  I  hope,  as  Jesus,  a  Jew,  gives  a  new 
commandment,  Love  one  another ! 

Later  generations  that  sprang  from  the  earlier  births 
show  a  larger  and  finer  brain,  and  consciousness  of 
purer  light  in  the  soul.  Earliest  of  the  Scriptures  gave 
a  primal  mandate  of  the  Highest,  referring  to  good 
evil ;  so  with  Druids  and  others  followed  a  say- 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  69 

ing,  "If  the  tree  bear  not  good  fruit,  cast  it  into  the 
fire !"  If  a  farmer  spends  time  cultivating  bad  stock, 
how  can  he  thrive?  Then  how  can  nations  prosper 
that  allow  evil  men  to  rule?  Pure  democracy  says, 
Cut  out  the  dead  wood ! 

Read  not  to  contradict  and  confute,  nor  to  believe 
and  take  for  granted!  nor  to  find  talk  and  discourse, 
but  to  weigh  and  consider.  — Bacon. 

Orthodox  Christians,  fleeing  to  America  to  escape 
religious  persecutions  by  England's  state  church,  grew 
very  intolerant,  and  began  to  kill  Quakers  and  witches. 
I  quote  from  a  new  book  published  by  Humphrey  Mil- 
ford,  The  Witch-Cult  in  Western  Europe. 

"Ritual  Witchcraft — the  Dianic  cult — embraces  the 
religious  beliefs  and  rituals  of  the  people  known  in  late 
mediaeval  times  as  'Witches/  The  evidence  proves 
that  underlying  the  Christian  religion  was  a  cult  prac- 
tised by  many  classes  of  the  community.  It  can  be 
traced  back  to  pre-Christian  times,  and  appears  to  be 
the  ancient  religion  of  Western  Europe,  which,  carried 
to  America,  caused  Cotton  Mather  to  say,  The  witches 
are  organized  like  Congregational  Churches/  There 
was  among  the  witches  a  body  of  elders — the  Coven — 
which  managed  the  local  affairs  of  the  cult,  and  a  man 
who,  like  the  minister,  held  the  chief  place,  though  as 
God  that  place  was  infinitely  higher  in  the  eyes  of  the 
congregation  than  any  held  by  a  mere  human  being. 
In  some  of  the  larger  congregations  there  was  a  per- 
son, inferior  to  the  Chief,  who  took  charge  in  the 
Chief's  absence.  In  Southern  France,  however,  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  Grand  Master  who  was  supreme 
over  several  districts.  The  position  of  the  chief 


70  PHYSICA..  LIFE 

woman  of  the  cult  is  still  somewhat  obscure.  It  may 
be  the  cult  mentioned  in  Scripture :  'Great  is  Diana  of 
the  Ephesians/  ' 

Little  is  known  of  the  animal  nature.  In  Egypt  of 
old  there  was  no  sacredness  of  a  human  being  recog- 
nized religiously  over  the  animals ;  and  in  Greece  at  the 
height  of  art  there  were  so  many  requirements  of  man 
for  the  horse  that  a  tradition  grew  that  they  were 
formed  together.  Science  teaches,  however,  that 
through  all  the  evolutions,  man  has  shrunken  physic- 
ally, but  expanded  mentally;  the  horse  has  greatly 
gained  physically.  In  Grecian  times  the  centaur  was 
reckoned  a  once  real  animal.  In  the  city  of  Taor- 
mena,  Italy,  can  be  seen  typical  man-monkey,  intelli- 
gent man  with  a  tail. 

Behold,  how  these  religionists  love  each  other:  at  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  in  Jerusalem,  even  where  they  in  real- 
ity fight  like  wolves,  when  the  gentle  Jesus  surely  is 
far  from  them.  'These  do  not  regard  a  command  to 
love  one  another.  Why  then  seek  holy  places  to  dis- 
honor purest  memorials?  If  idolatry  lead  you  into 
savagery,  how  expect  a  better  world  when  you  pass 
with  your  degradations  marked  on  your  soul  record 
in  this  life?  If  you  love  the  old  home,  and  keep  in 
remembrance  all  the  joys  of  earth,  you  are  fitting  your- 
selves possibly  by  many  rebirths  for  the  "amen  cor- 
ner," as  the  saying  is,  for  the  place  of  many  mansions, 
on  any  habitable  sphere,  in  the  skies,  promised  for  the 
elect.  Above  all,  at  any  rebirth,  do  not  neglect  your 
soul-gifts  from  God.  Sweet  brain-path  memories — 
dearest  in  the  book  of  memory,  always  with  you, 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  71 

reached  ever  in  sights  and  sounds,  not  of  any  sphere 
especially,  along  your  path ! 

Therefore,  O  friends,  if  you  are  of  my  mind, 

When  we  are  passed  the  French  and  English  strait, 

Let  us  seek  news  of  that  desired  gate 

To  immortality  and  blessed  rest 

Within  the  landless  waters  of  the  west; 

But  still  a  little  to  the  southward  steer,     .... 

Spice  trees  set  waving  by  the  western  wind, 

And  gentle  folk  who  know  no  guile  at  least, 

And  many  a  bright- winged  bird  and  so  ft- skinned  beast, 

For  gently  must  the  year  upon  them  fall. 

— Morris*  Earthly  Paradise. 

We  always  have  carpings  as  to  the  faults  in  nature, 
and  ye  proud  scholars  have  been  of  late  finding  many 
faults  in  Shakespeare,  the  child  of  nature,  in  all  his 
writings.  He  is  decried  mostly  because  he  was  not  a 
university  man.  Shakespeare  was  plainly,  openly,  uni- 
versal, and  not  particular  about  small  things. 

A  recent  writer,  Prof.  Powell,  about  early  orthodox 
religions  mentions  services  in  Crete  where  devotees 
danced  to  most  excellent  dance  music,  and  hymns  that 
exacted  the  best  of  trained  singing.  He  says,  "There 
is  little  permanence  for  a  religion  consisting  only  of 
miracle  and  ritual,  and  less  for  one  of  magic;  and 
these  types  are  doomed  to  pass  away/' 

THE  COWBOY'S  PRAYER 

Oh,  Lord,  I've  never  lived  where  churches  grow, 

I  love  creation  better  as  it  stood 
That  day  you  finished  it  so  long  ago, 

And  looked  upon  your  work  and  called  it  good. 

I  know  that  others  find  you  in  the  light 
That  filters  down  through  tinted  window  panes, 

And  yet  I  seem  to  feel  you  near  tonight 
In  the  dim,  quiet  starlight  on  the  plains. 


72  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

I  thank  you,  Lord,  that  I  am  placed  so  well ; 

That  you  have  made  my  freedom  so  complete, 
That  I'm  no  slave  of  whistle,  clock  or  bell, 

Or  weak-eyed  prisoner  of  wall  or  street. 

Just  let  me  live  my  life  as  I've  begun, 
And  give  me  work  that's  open  to  the  sky; 

Make  me  a  partner  of  the  wind  and  sun, 
And  I  won't  ask  a  life  that's  soft  or  high. 

Let  me  be  easy  on  the  man  that's  down ; 

And  make  me  square  and  generous  with  all ; 
I'm  careless  sometimes,  Lord,  when  I'm  in  town, 

But  never  let  them  say  I'm  mean  or  small. 

Make  me  as  big  and  open  as  the  plains, 
As  honest  as  the  horse  between  my  knees, 

Clean  as  the  wind  that  blows  behind  the  rains, 
Free  as  the  hawk  that  circles  down  the  breeze. 

Forgive  me,  Lord,  when  I  sometimes  forget, 
You  understand  the  reasons  that  are  hid, 

You  know  the  little  things  that  gall  and  fret, 
You  know  me  better  than  my  mother  does. 

Just  keep  an  eye  on  all  that's  done  and  said, 
Just  right  me  sometimes  when  I  turn  aside, 

And  guide  me  on  the  long,  long  trail  ahead 
That  stretches  upward  toward  the  Great  Divide. 

— Badger  Clark. 

Inabilities  of  our  priestly  class  are  mostly  because  of 
bad  training  that  may  be  traced  from  the  beginning. 
In  days  of  idolatry  there  was  chosen  a  certain  class  of 
men  assigned  to  keep  the  hands  of  a  lower  class  off  the 
sacred  thing.  For  ages  the  assignment  lasted,  and  in 
some  respects  for  the  mentally  lowest  of  peoples,  as 
can  be  traced  today;  but  now  culture  of  all  races  has 
risen  until  the  Spirit  of  God  is  manifest.  In  fact,  to- 
day the  ''holy  men"  really  and  truly  fight  against  the 
Eternal  One  and  for  idolatry. 

Our  modern  beliefs  are  for  all  humanity,  as  Jesus 
taught  the  people,  not  for  the  "upper  class."  No  man 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  73 

can  rise  above  the  evident  and  well  understood  behest 
of  the  true  Scripture.  "By  the  sweat  of  thy  brow 
shalt  thou  earn  thy  bread/'  But  the  lazy  class  assert, 
"The  world  owes  us  a  living/'  Any  place  at  an  altar 
must  be  the  hirelings  of  idol  worship,  now  descended 
into  mere  custom.  Educational  work,  or  work  in  hos- 
pitals, require  no  Very  Reverends.  Only  good  charity 
workers  need  apply.  You  may,  not  loving  exertion,  se- 
lect thus  a  needed  branch  of  work — but  work  for  your- 
self— if  you  have  the  means,  furnish  the  means  to 
carry  on  the  good  work. 

No  more  school  sports,  if  these  innocents  are  to  seri- 
ously turn  attention  to  God's  altar  and  the  church  trap- 
pings of  ANY  denomination,  in  the  house  of  God  or 
gods.  In  reading,  to  begin  with  Genesis,  the  urchin 
is  told,  Man  was  made  of  the  dust  of  the  earth.  Not 
very  educational  is  this,  for  a  fact !  A  book  on  geol- 
ogy will  tell  a  very  different  story.  There  was  no  dust 
until  made  in  millions  of  years  later  by  tramplings  of 
man  and  other  animals.  So  of  the  Ark  story :  very  in- 
definite and  misleading,  to  take  a  lawyer,  sure,  or  paid 
preacher,  to  tell  you  straight. 

Aristocracies  in  either  form,  churchly  or  govern- 
mental, are  taboo  in  any  republic,  for  the  wars  they 
have  created  in  all  ages  have  very  much  hampered  the 
true  growth  and  resourcefulness  of  the  people. 

Life  on  other  planets,  if  we  judge  from  conditions 
here,  has  constant  changes  and  evolutions.  With  the 
horse,  we  know  his  physical  life  has  tended  to  the  im- 
provement in  size,  while  that  of  man  goes  to  the  men- 
tal make-up,  more  of  spiritual  change.  We  know  from 
experience  in  earth's  past,  that  races  enslaved  can  only 


74  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

after  great  lapses  of  time  assume  the  most  upright 
phase  and  be  clear  of  gypsyings.  With  lower  animals, 
they  understand  our  ways  and  words,  but  never  speak. 

In  Leaves  of  Grass,  my  old  companion,  Walt  Whit- 
man, wrote  concerning  his  soul :  "I  have  fingered 
every  shore  with  thee!"  Even  today  we  are  worried 
touching  drinkables,  and  in  our  U.  S.  Constitution  is 
prohibition  touching  alcohol  to  be  drank  by  the  weak- 
headed.  It  is  a  poison. 

As  the  schools  teach,  there  are  many  worms  having 
each  the  two  sexes,  and  all  sex  matters  are  free  of 
dust.  That  the  earth  had  its  origin  in  fluidity, — cooled 
steam  with  the  sun's  help  in  sending  its  power  by  grav- 
ity of  heat  in  very  fine  particles.  So  when  life  was 
sent  to  earth,  a  Higher  Life  it  was,  came  with  an  im- 
pulse we  know  not  of. 

Army  worms,  pet  ones,  take  to  the  sea  in  undersea 
crafts  used  only  in  the  latest  of  our  wars.  Last  we 
hope  to  see  of  that  breed.  Pests  to  farmers  plan  their 
forays  at  stated  intervals  in  the  dark.  Both  kinds  of 
pests  are  to  be  dreaded. 

Many  good  people,  from  suggestions  of  priests  or 
ministers,  have  urged  our  lawmakers  to  permit  the  use 
of  the  Bible  in  schools.  It  needs  not  much  argument 
to  convince  the  thoughttul  that  this  would  not  be  in 
the  interest  of  education.  The  child  must  have  a  time 
for  childish  things,  yet  on  going  to  school  he  is  to  be 
educated.  When  told  to  read  from  the  Word  of  God 
the  little  one  is  puzzled.  "No  one  has  seen  God  at  any 
time." 

About  an  ancient  religious  belief  I  quote  one  of 
Erasmus'  Colloquies:  "During  a  furious  storm  at  sea, 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  75 

not  a  few  fell  flat  on  the  deck,  and  began  to  worship 
the  sea,  pouring  all  the  oil  they  could  get  hold  of  upon 
the  waters,  soothing  it,  just  as  we  are  wont  to  do  to 
an  irritated  prince.  O  most  merciful  sea,  most  noble 
sea,  most  worthy  sea!  O  most  beautiful  sea!  grow 
calm  and  save  us.  Many  prayers  of  this  kind  they 
kept  chanting  to  the  deaf  sea.  Some  were  only  seasick, 
most  of  them  were  making  vows.  One  Englishman 
was  there  who  kept  promising  mountains  of  gold  to 
Our  Lady  of  Walsingham  if  ever  he  set  foot  on  land 
alive.  Some  made  many  promises  to  the  wood  of  the 
cross  in  one  place,  and  others  to  it  in  another.  A  few 
promised  to  turn  Carthusians.  One  there  was  who 
bound  himself  to  go  to  St.  James  of  Campostello  with 
bare  feet  and  head,  his  body  covered  only  with  a  shirt 
of  iron  mail,  and  begging  his  bread  along  the  road.  I 
could  not  but  laugh,  as  I  heard  one  vowing  as  loud  as 
he  could  bellow  lest  he  should  not  be  attended  to,  a 
wax  figure  as  big  as  the  St.  Christopher  who  stands 
on  the  top  of  the  church  in  Paris — more  like  a  moun- 
tain than  a  statue.  While  he  was  thus  vociferating 
at  his  best,  an  acquaintance  that  happened  to  be  stand- 
ing next  to  him  gave  him  a  nudge,  and  added  a  hint, 
'Mind  what  you  promise/  he  says,  'even  if  you  sell  by 
auction  everything  you  possess  you  could  not  pay  this/ 
The  other  replied,  in  a  most  subdued  tone,  so  that 
St.  Christopher  should  not  hear,  forsooth,  'Hold  your 
tongue,  you  idiot.  Do  you  think  I  am  speaking  my 
real  mind?  If  only  once  I  set  my  foot  ashore  I  should 
not  give  him  as  much  as  a  tallow  candle.'  " 

Our  Holy  Bible,  with  all  the  uses  made  of  it, — to  be 
worshipped  as  the  object  of  all  things  holy;  to  be  sub- 


76  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

ject  of  study  for  millions  of  the  thoughtful  in  all  gen- 
erations,— is,  I  think,  still  a  mystery.  For  the  world- 
ling it  is  an  idol ;  for  those  who  read  it  by  the  Inner 
Light,  as  was  that  light  with  Jesus,  it  is  "the  light  of 
the  world/' 

Let  it  be  understood  that  the  author  is  not  quarrel- 
ing with  religion,  but  so  far  as  it  concerns  Jesus — 
many  of  us  wish  His  rebirth  may  be  often  of  earth, 
until  all  aristocracies  and  churches  of  that  kind, — or 
admixture  of  these, — have  been  quelled  by  common 
consent.  Some  persist  in  saying  we  are  heaven-called — * 
ideally  perfect  in  our  Biblical  interpretations;  but  all 
may  settle  into  one  belief,  that  no  books  are  kept  in  a 
higher  place  than  here  on  earth.  If  religions  were 
from  above,  beliefs  would  be  all  alike.  A  theory  that 
we  all  have  by  instinct  is  of  self-preservation,  and  for 
union  in  a  government,  as  lower  animals  exhibit  in 
their  flocks. 

A  reason  for  our  calling  Jesus  the  Lord  is  that  He 
is  and  has  long  been  leader  in  human  democracies. 
The  nearer  we  get  to  republican  form,  the  nearer  to 
the  Lord  and  God. 

There  is  no  middle  ground  from  the  idolatry  of  old 
to  the  community  of  man.  Aristocracy  and  such  as 
beliefs  seem  mere  phantoms. 

I  will  give  and  I  will  take  are  selfish  notions,  not 
possibly  inheriting  in  a  Creator  of  All ;  but  if  human 
rights  are  interfered  writh  a  Scripture  rightly  says  of 
Him,  ""I  will  repay." 

As  to  reincarnation,  being  reborn,  that  is  a  theory 
of  life.  You  will  not  be  murdered  if  you  fail  to  be- 
lieve in  it,  so  go  your  individual  way ;  but  help  the  help- 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  77 

less,  and  do  unto  others  as  you  wish  to  be  done  by. 
Beliefs  are  of  no  account. 

To  make  a  Roman  holiday  required  many  sacrifices. 
Captured  queens  and  kings,  bedraggled  and  in  chains, 
and  so  many  other  captives,  dragged  to  the  Coliseum 
and  to  death.  All  the  spoils  of  war  and  of  savagery 
became  offerings  to  some  god.  On  his  chariot  was  the 
conqueror's  sign  —  so  gods  and  men  might  not  get 
mixed,  the  glaring  sigh,  "Remember  thou  art  a  man/' 
The  spoils  of  empire  were  heaped  mountain  high. 

Later,  the  glory  of  conquerors  and  all  their  belong- 
ings faded,  as  fades  the  pictures  on  the  movie  screens 
— about  as  little  worth. 

The  majesty  of  old  Rome,  of  savagery,  replaced 
awhile  by  a  Christian  ruler,  Constantine,  he  to  leave 
the  ruins  and  seek  shelter  in  the  East,  Constantinople. 
Now  we  have  two  rival  powers,  both  "followers  of  the 
Lamb  of  God/'  or  as  Carlyle  said  of  them,  Papas. 
Seneca  the  pagan  says,  "What  today  are  your  suffer- 
ings compared  with  the  flame  and  the  rack  ?  and  yet  in 
the  midst  of  sufferings  of  that  sort  I  have  seen  men 
not  only  groan,  that  is  little ;  not  only  complain,  that  is 
little ;  not  only  reply,  that  too  is  little.  But  I  have  seen 
them  smile,  and  smile  with  a  good  heart." 

Did  Jesus  ever  join  or  recognize  a  church,  except  as 
His  mother  led  him?  His  pure  religion  and  undefiled 
was,  be  helpful  for  others,  and  remain  undefiled  by  the 
world.  Surely  this  is  credo  enough  for  the  Christian 
religion  later !  Have  we  any  church  that  is  limited  to 
this? — if  we  have  showdowns  of  creeds,  these  are  as 
the  "movies."  It  is  of  record  that  Jesus  said  to  a 
disciple  who  had  been  a  baptizer,  "I  will  suffer  this," — 


78  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

but  I  surmise  He  meant  no  form  that  binds  to  a  creed. 
Doctors  of  divinity  who  had  asked  the  lad  Jesus  to 
converse,  did  not  find  that  they  could  later  "convert" 
him.  A  little  later,  in  torture  on  the  cross,  He  ex- 
claimed as  dying,  cursing,  O  ye  generation  of  vipers ! 
Should  Jesus  be  reborn  to  earth,  at  this  time,  would  He 
be  likely  to  seek  knowledge  as  taught  at  Bible  Insti- 
tutes? I  think  not,  for  His  unusual  intelligence  2000 
years  ago,  and  His  soul  goes  marching  on.  What  a 
great  and  good  helper  He  surely  would  be  today  for 
all  of  us ! 

My  suggestion  came  for  adopting  the  so-called  Re- 
birth Theory  of  Higher  Light,  and  its  opposite,  the 
physical  being,  from  Franklin  H.  Heald's  "The  Pro- 
cession of  Planets.  In  our  world  there  can  only  be 
originally,  motion  from  heat  ,and  its  opposite  in  polar- 
ity is  cold,  the  Creator's  forces  in  nature.  As  life  be- 
longs to  the  higher  light  of  a  soul,  I  insist  that  the 
polarities  dominate  even  as  between  the  bad  and  the 
good — devil  for  evil  and  a  good  God.  In  Darwin  you 
will  find  only  references  to  life  here  on  earth:  Fal- 
staff,  as  Shakespeare  shows  him  a  go-between,  says, 
"And  if  I  be  virtuous  will  there  be  no  more  cakes  and 
ale?" 

Near  the  same  locality  in  England  were  born — a  few 
years  only  the  one  older  than  the  other — two  babes, 
destined  to  be  great  leaders  in  religious  freedom : 
George  Fox  and  John  Bunyan.  The  former  became 
advocate  of  a  Light  within,  the  other  was  author  of 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  that  directs  Christian  to  a  GREAT 
LIGHT  before  him  and  others,  always. 

Men  of  intelligence,  in  Jerusalem  who  had  courage 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  79 

of  their  convictions  and  ideas  not  formed  into  creeds) 
were  very  scarce  when  the  question  of  having  Jesus, 
the  idealist  and  thinker,  make  open  proclamation  of 
dissent  from  Jewish  doctrines, — and  He  Himself  a 
Jew !  Says  Prof.  Fiske :  "So  is  the  kingdom  of  God, 
as  if  a  man  should  cast  seed  upon  the  earth;  and 
should  sleep  and  rise  night  and  day,  and  the  seed 
should  spring  up  and  grow,  he  knoweth  not  how.  The 
earth  beareth  fruit  of  herself ;  first  the  blade,  then  the 
ear,  then  the  full  grain  in  the  ear.  But  when  the  fruit 
is  ripe,  straightway  he  putteth  forth  the  sickle,  because 
the  harvest  is  come/'  Evolution  is  defined  by  Pro- 
fessor Le  Conte  as  "continuous  progressive  change 
according  to  certain  laws  and  by  means  of  resident 
forces." 

We  only  begin  to  understand,  notwithstanding  so 
many  things  thought  very  holy  in  tita  New  Testament, 
that  some  biblical  facts  abound  of  supreme  use  for  hu- 
manity in  the  books  referring  to  Jesus.  Our  Outlook 
explains  this :  The  gardener  can  plow  the  ground  and 
fertilize  it,  and  can  guard  the  growing  tree  and  spray 
and  prune  it ;  but  he  cannot  give  life  to  either  seed  or 
soil.  Growth  from  seed  and  soil  is  God's  way  of  mak- 
ing an  apple — continuous,  progressive  growth  by  a 
force  residing  in  the  seed  and  in  the  soul.  Sow  dia- 
monds in  the  soil  and  nothing  happens;  for  the  dia- 
monds have  not  life.  President  of  Yale,  Dr.  James  R. 
Angell,  thinks  that  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  are  "extolled  in 
terms  which  would  have  brought  the  blush  of  shame 
to  their  tanned  and  sallow  cheeks, "  and  that  the  praise 
is  not  only  excessive,  but  is  often  "ludicrously  miscon- 
ceived and  misdirected/' 


80  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

"Between  two  fires"  is  an  old  phrase,  and  a  truth, 
with  man  and  other  animals.  I  saw  this  exemplified 
at  Rose  Hill,  my  home,  when  a  new  neighbor  there 
wished  to  search  my  hillside  lot  to  find  his  escaped 
wild  cat.  In  Arizona  he  caught  a  male  and  a  female, 
and  wished  to  raise  them  for  pets.  They  bore  captivity 
a  while,  but  instinct  prevailed  —  this  out  of  the  way 
place  was  not  the  mountains,  their  home.  The  male 
kitten  broke  for  liberty  and  disappeared.  He  was 
caught  a  week  later  in  a  nearby  garret,  and  the  owner 
carried  him  (everybody  else  afraid)  to  the  cage  again, 
and  to  his  mate.  Whether  or  no  she  had  become 
reconciled,  and  trusted  a  mere  man,  it  never  will  be 
known.  The  wilder  one,  now  in  the  cage,  with  un- 
tamed instincts,  one  day  killed  and  mangled  the  mate. 
Why? 

The  last  and  greatest  Prophet  of  the  Jews  came  of 
a  good  mother  and  father,  and  had  a  good  home  and 
trade,  carpenter.  The  doctors  of  His  church  could 
not  "convert"  the  boy  Jesus  (Joshua)  of  this  family, 
so  for  being  an  infidel,  associating  like  the  other  poor 
Jews  with  the  publicans  and  sinners,  He  was  outlawed. 
He,  the  very  flower  of  humanity!  Church  and  state 
in  darkness,  lo,  these  many  centuries,  have  had  wonted 
evolutions  since  the  infidel  Jesus  suffered  on  the  cross, 
and  now  in  America  the  state  is  exalted,  and  the  church 
—-between  the  kill  and  cure  medicine,  meekly  survives. 

Instincts  are  the  lead-all  in  life;  the  humble  follow 
this  call  oftener  than  the  great,  the  rich,  the  so-called 
wise  and  worldly.  A  creed  is  noted  in  the  church,  but 
we  have  the  cute  priest — once  he,  we  know,  advised  a 
searcher  after  truth — George  Fox,  the  Quaker— to 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  81 

quiet  his  soul  by  running  with  the  girls,  smoke  tobacco 
and  drink  a  little.  This  priest  was  not  speaking  higher 
than  other  worldly  wise  ones. 

Our  Bible,  true  to  all  instincts  of  mankind,  calls 
attention  to  a  study  of  man's  foreknowledge.  All  ani- 
mal kind  has  a  light  to  perceive  its  course  at  death, 
and  craves  to  return  to  nature — to  former  habitats  in 
the  wild  state,  the  woods  and  mountains  green,  and 
"beside  the  still  waters." 

Pierre  Loti  of  France  made  comparison  a  great 
feature  in  life,  and  chose  the  cat  as  a  close  friend, 
because  she  almost  talked  with  hi$n,  through  the  eye. 
His  pets  always  escaped  before  their  death,  knowing 
death  would  not  end  all — and  all  life  was  craving  for 
particular  locations  on  earth.  The  old  home,  of  the 
spirit — the  heaven  we  say.  That  flash,  the  vision  of 
death,  "we  know  neither  the  day,  nor  the  hour"  for  it. 
This  period  having  illumination  of  the  soul  and  not 
of  this  world.  John  Burroughs,  dying  in  the  car, 
asked  in  bewilderment,  "Are  we  near  home?"  Earth, 
his  ideal  home. 

Church  and  state  powers  in  Europe  during  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  were  not  favorable  to  having  the  New  Year 
begin  at  or  near  our  Christmas  date,  but  the  old 
heathen  festival  spirit  was  too  deeply  established  to  be 
easily  thrown  out;  the  Christ  mass  was  not  substi- 
tuted for  New  Year  day.  Prof.  Poole,  of  the  British 
Academy,  says  the  Year  of  Grace  period  for  the  con- 
tinent, carried  by  the  English  missionaries,  having 
learned  that  near  the  same  period  in  the  year  a  harvest 
festival  of  the  aborigines  was  celebrated — so  the 
churches  had  the  Christ  mass  to  occur  as  it  does,  and 


82  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

New  Year  later.  The  church  festival  of  Easter,  also 
Lady  Day,  etc.,  were  kept  to  mark  New  Years  before 
our  Old  Style  was  replaced  by  the  proper  one  of 
astronomers.  The  monks  were  careless  and  ignorant, 
so  church  records  are  giving  New  Year  day — from 
September  to  March ! 

The  Times  of  Los  Angeles  wisely  asserts  that  the 
church  should  be  a  retaining  wall  at  the  edge  of  the 
cliff  rather  than  a  hospital  at  its  base. 

That  eternal  riddle,  Life  and  Death,  the  here  and 
the  there,  that  is  highest  in  importance,  can  do  little  to 
enlighten  the  near-animal  nature  in  many.  Schools 
can  not  do  more  than  stimulate  the  thoughtful,  but  our 
form  of  government  compels  equal  attention  for  all. 
Artemus  Ward  in  humorous  way  speaks  of  showmen, 
who  seek  a  living  by  exhibiting  the  wonderful,  or  the 
Billy  Sunday  style  of  frightening  people  into  their  nets, 
when  the  humor  was  shown  of  a  man  raking  in  money 
"to  look  at  the  sublime  eclipse  of  the  sun! — 10  cents 
only!  Come  right  inside  this  open-top  tent  and  look 
up!!" 

When  dying,  the  great  Goethe  exclaimed,  "More 
Light  I"  as  nearing  the  end  of  life  here,  he  possibly  saw 
the  Great  Light  John  Bunyan  speaks  of  in  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  and  the  repeated  mental  state  referred  to 
by  George  Fox,  of  an  Inner  Light.  John  Burroughs, 
lately  dying,  was  not  clear  of  the  world's  visions  of 
creatures  he  loved  here,  and  asked,  "Are  we  near 
home?"  I  have  a  last  photo  taken  near  our  Arroyo  of 
him,  that  I  think  should  never  have  existed, — of  a  last 
illness  that  prsented  tortures  at  a  time  that  even  our 
animals  seek  to  be  alone,  earth  passing. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  83 

On  this  subject  I  quote,  author  unknown : 

"When  some  one  leaves  this  world  to  go  on  to  an- 
other, why  it  is  usually  said  that  the  person  'died'  ?  Is 
it  right  to  say  that  John  Burroughs,  for  instance,  is 
'dead/  when  we  know  very  well  that  he  still  lives,  and 
that  his  feet  are  wandering  in  fields  of  asphodel  in 
another  country?  That  which  was  really  John  Bur- 
roughs could  not  die.  The  poor,  old  worn  temple  that 
was  his  body  crumbled  back  to  the  dust  from  whence 
it  came.  But  John  Burroughs,  himself,  is  living  still. 

"The  Christian  Scientists  say  that  he  has  'passed 
on/  The  Salvation  Army  say  of  their  departed  com- 
rades that  they  have  been  'promoted/  Both  these 
phrases  are  infinitely  better  than  the  common  usage." 

Franklin  H.  Heald,  of  Los  Angeles,  when  first  he 
published  his  Procession  of  Planets,  about  1907,  went 
on  camping  trips,  until  1921,  then,  with  Mrs.  Heald, 
located  near  Death  Valley. 

Men  of  science  avoided  belief  in  his  theory  of  the 
universe,  just  as  men  keep  up  notions  of  the  past  until 
the  show-down  comes.  This  in  humanity,  as  a  white 
feather  on  a  blackbird,  meant  that  the  flock  instinct  in 
nature  must  be  paramount.  We  are  yet  in  that  stage 
of  civilization  as  the  Indian,  our  predecessor  of  the 
soil,  has  belief  in — "medicine  men/' 

F.  H.  Heald  explains  in  his  Procession  of  the  Plan- 
ets the  basic  principles  in  nature  thus:  Matter  has 
three  forms,  and  two  motions,  extending  and  contract- 
ing. Water,  we  know,  takes  up  the  least  room  the 
instant  before  it  is  in  the  solid  form — when  it  is  in  a 
crystalized  state  its  atoms  lie  between  straight  parallel 
lines.  When  32  degrees  of  heat  are  added  its  bulk  is 


84  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

decreased  and  it  becomes  a  liquid.  Increase  heat  to 
212  degrees,  it  becomes  a  gas  and  occupies  1730  times 
the  space  it  occupied  as  a  solid.  So  all  matter  in- 
creases in  bulk  as  it  is  heated.  Gas  at  the  sun  below 
must  hold  the  gas  above  up  as  far  as  it  can,  and  when 
it  meets  the  gas  from  the  next  sun — where  upward 
expansion  from  the  two  are  equal,  of  course  it  can  go 
no  farther.  Gas  is  composed  of  spherical  atoms,  each 
one  from  the  sun  held  up  and  forced  up  by  pressure 
from  the  sun, — held  up  and  pressed  up  by  pressure 
from  the  next  one.  A  pile  of  these  atoms  has  the 
force  of  expansion  by  heat  at  the  sun,  so  must  force 
them  up  and  hold  them  there  until  they  become  cold 
enough  to  contract  into  solid  matter;  then  they  begin 
to  fall  again,  by  gravity,  to  the  sun,  or  center  from 
which  they  expanded.  If  there  was  only  the  force  of 
heat  in  nature,  all  matter  would  be  expanded  into  space 
as  gas,  never  to  return ;  and  if  there  was  only  the  force 
of  gravity  or  contraction  in  nature,  all  matter  would 
finally  be  concentrated  into  one  vast  body.  In  either 
case  all  would  be  silence  and  death. 

When  Sir  Isaac  Newton  discovered  the  force  of 
gravity  or  contraction,  by  wondering  why  the  apple 
fell  to  the  earth  instead  of  into  the  sky,  if  he  had 
wondered  also  how  it  came  into  the  tree  top  he  would 
have  discovered  the  law  of  heat  expansion,  the  oppo- 
site of  gravity,  or  the  other  great  force  in  nature.  It 
was  the  force  of  expansion  by  heat  acting  on  the  soil 
which  sent  the  sap  up  through  the  pores  of  the  tree  to 
the  apple  blossom  to  build  the  apples;  and  it  is  the 
same  throughout  all  nature.  It  is  the  force  of  heat 
generated  by  the  friction  of  decay  or  chemical  decom- 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  85 

position  of  food  in  our  stomachs  that  warms  our  blood, 
feeds  our  tissues,  muscles  and  nerves,  and  sustains  our 
life;  but  it  is  the  force  of  gravity,  or  contraction,  that 
collects  the  substances,  condenses  and  ossifies  the 
bones,  muscles  and  tissue,  finally  bringing  the  ripeness 
and  wrinkles  of  old  age  and  death. 

When  matter  returns  to  the  sun,  as  solid  matter 
crystalized  into  separate  elements,  and  is  expanded  into 
gas  tens  of  thousands  of  times  its  bulk  when  solid,  and 
is  swelled  up  into  space,  it  is  composed  of  a  perfect 
mixture  of  all  the  elements  in  matter  and  nature.  It  is 
forced  up  into  intensely  cold  regions  of  space,  where 
it  contracts  into  solid  matter,  and  gathers  into  worlds. 
It  separates  again  into  different  elements,  such  as 
water,  air,  and  the  various  minerals,  as  it  goes  through 
its  evolutions — returning  to  the  sun,  thus  to  start 
force  to  again  release  it  at  the  end  of  another  journey. 

This  outpouring  of  matter  and  energy  from  the  sun 
in  every  direction  in  space,  and  a  continual  returning 
of  this  matter  and  energy,  guided  by  the  minor  forces 
in  the  great  circling  orbits  of  the  planets,  moons  and 
other  bodies, — is  an  everlasting  movement,  until  the 
suns  fail. 

Lockyer  says  the  visible  universe,  as  distinguished 
from  our  own  universe,  is  less  extended  in  some  direc- 
tions. They  are  most  numerous,  the  bodies  ,as  a  zone 
which  crosses  the  Milky  Way  at  right  angles ;  the  con- 
stellation of  Virgo  being  so  rich  in  them  that  a  portion 
of  it  is  termed  the  Nebulous  region  of  Virgo; — this 
being  at  right  angles  to  the  Milky  Way  is  on  the  plane 
of  the  sun's  equator,  and  as  Mr.  Heald  says,  is  exactly 
where  we  must  expect  to  find  the  condensed  crystals  of 


86  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

this  expanded  gas, — where  new  worlds  should  be 
forming.  The  negatively  charged  Nebula  is  the  sup- 
posed cause  of  rotation  from  electrical  disturbance. 

From  outworn  theories  in  astronomy,  we  find  that 
the  stars  are  supposed  to  have  "influence"  upon  us  of 
the  earth ! 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  87 


BOOK  TWO 

From  conquering  Rome  taking  possession  of  the  so- 
called  Holy  Land  at  the  time  Jesus  worked,  suffered 
and  died  that  cruel  death  on  the  cross,  there  may  be 
excuses  for  the  Jewish  church  showing  great  resent- 
ment against  a  member  (Joshua  or  Jesus)  for  offering 
to  reform  the  holy  order  of  a  holy  church;  but  cor- 
ruption had  done  its  deadly  work  among  even  the 
anointed  and  leaders  of  church.  Kill  the  rebel !  And 
they  did ;  but  that  murder  has  had  far-reaching  effect. 
The  old  hymn,  Dies  Ire,  says : 

The  Jews  were  wrought  to  cruel  madness, 
Christians  fled  in  fear  and  sadness; 
Mary  stood  the  cross  beside. 

Ignorance  in  the  population  had  prevented  any  per- 
ceptible change  from  the  preaching  of  the  reformers, 
Jesus  and  John.  A  woman  at  the  well  ,tradition  tells 
us,  heard  Jesus  speak,  telling  of  all  the  "things  that 
ever  I  did/'  Astonishing!  a  fortune-teller  abroad! 
Others  reported  the  dead  had  been  given  life  again,  by 
a  rebel  against  God,  who  had  in  His  wisdom  assigned 
Death.  Then,  too,  Jesus  had  driven  devils  from  in- 
sane persons  into  swine,  and  drowned  the  bad  spirits 
with  the  hogs ! 

Intelligent  and  religious  mortals  everywhere  have 
had  lasting  sorrow  over  the  loss  of  Jesus,  in  His  early 
prime;  but  traditions  (His  writings  evidently  de- 
stroyed, as  He  was  not  an  ignoramus),  having  with 
the  Father's  care  been  preserved  through  all  the  cen- 


88  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

turies  since!  Some  idol  worshippers  ,holding  to  the 
idols  of  the  earliest  of  mankind,  had  the  audacity  to 
revive  the  dead  forms  of  "altar/'  "died  for  us/'  so  His 
cruel  death,  a  matter  of  course,  as  taking  the  place  of 
a  slaughtered  beast  ,and  priests  grabbing  for  the 
"burnt  offerings."  But  such  a  stretch  of  cruel  fancy 
seems  horrible!  Shame,  like  fanaticism,  has  no 
bounds.  This  being  an  age  of  reason,  there  need  be 
no  more  hesitation,  as  when  the  Roman  judge,  sentenc- 
ing Jesus,  said,  "What  is  truth?  I  find  no  fault  in  this 
man."  The  coming  of  a  Christ,  a  man  of  God,  was 
the  belief  of  pious  Hebrews ;  and  when  that  one  came, 
"eating  and  drinking,"  living  with  common  folks,  he 
was  despised,  forsaken,  crucified.  From  the  world's 
terrible  warrings  and  cruelties  in  every  form,  surely  it 
was  the  Christ — when  He  preached  Love,  Compassion, 
and  Peace! 

Greater  the  preacher — so  few  are  great  and  consci- 
entiously pious — then  the  greater  thinker;  divine  na- 
ture being  nearest  the  Divine  Being.  Are  divines  re- 
lated to  the  Good  Samaritan,  or  too  many  to  the  de- 
spicable Levites? 

Brooks,  the  good  man  and  famous  preacher,  said : 

That  makes  us  purer,  makes  us  wiser,  too, 

And  every  beauty  coming  on  a  beam 

Of  God's  sweet  sunlight,  brings  new  truth  to  view. 

"Keep,  O  pleasant  Melvin  stream, 
Thy  sweet  laugh  in  shade  and  gleam ! 
On  the  Indian's  grassy  tomb 
Swing,  O  flowers,  your  bells  of  bloom ! 
Deep  below  as  high  above, 
Sweeps  the  circle  of  God's  love." 

— Whittier. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  89 

When  Jean  Valjean  felt  the  death-damp  gathering 
about  him,  Victor  Hugo  put  into  his  mouth  these  reg- 
nant words :  "I  do  not  know  what  is  the  matter  with 
me;  but  I  see  LIGHT!" 

My  old  friend,  Americus  D.  Buck,  has  an  expres- 
sion, when  I  offer  some  book  to  him,  "That  author 
doesn't  write  for  me."  We  cannot  school  ourselves 
into  something  our  nature  does  not  care  for.  Cram- 
ming and  memorizing  is  not  a  thing  of  the  spirit  if 
the  spirit  does  not  absorb  the  thoughts  or  images. 
That  is  the  reason  for  waste  of  time  in  school  or 
church.  Mind  has  its  own  memorizing  cord  beginning 
at  the  very  beginning  of  life,  or  of  instincts  earlier, 
thoughts  of  snakes  or  dragons  of  some  long  past  ages 
torment  the  timid  always.  Even  physical  peculiarities 
of  your  life  may  linger.  A  man  was  seen  lately  at 
Taormina,  in  Sicily,  who  has  a  tail  like  a  chimpanzee. 
Several  thousand  years  ago,  possibly,  his  strain  of  in- 
heritance came  of  the  meaner  animal. 

Darwin  was  a  near-martyr  for  having  said  our  race 
sprang  out  of  an  earlier  form  of  life — the  chimpanzee, 
to  illustrate,  having  all  the  bones  of  animal  structure 
man  has.  The  bridge  to  reach  lower  than  humanity  is 
now  resting  upon  a  figment  of  belief  in  some  other 
compromise  structure.  Pride  goeth  before  a  fall.  Act 
well  your  part — there  all  the  honor  lies;  the  dishonor 
may  rest  on  your  mean  monkeying  like  the  monkey. 

Roman  Catholic  artists  picture  the  dying  Jesus  on 
the  cross,  with  spikes  through  His  feet,  and  instead  of 
the  Roman  death  cap  He  wears  a  crown  of  thorns. 
Greeks  and  other  enlightened  peoples  are  probably 
correct — the  feet  and  legs  bound  with  a  cord.  Roman 


90  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

soldiers,  best  drilled  of  soldiers,  allowed  no  rabble  to 
interfere — with  hootings  and  violence — against  any  of 
the  three,  rebels  or  outlaws ;  they  were  commanded  to 
execute  legally  (?),  in  that  trinity  being  Jesus. 

They  also,  (later  than  the  Bible)  give  us  some 
pointers  to  explain  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  as  also  the 
Holy  Ghost  (?)  for  sacred  Trinity. 

Listen  to  the  song  of  the  fire, — that  element  with 
water  will  conquer  all  things  physical  on  earth.  So 
long  as  the  blubber  of  the  whale,  and  fat  remains  of 
the  hybernating  bear,  we  may  expect  a  continuance  of 
ordinary  life.  When  the  life  elements  are  withdrawn, 
death  of  course  follows.  Ingenuity  of  man  already 
thinks  over  the  possibility  of  using  central-earth  fires 
for  heat,  to  drive  our  machinery  and  cook  our  meals. 

Traditions  have  long  existed,  that  the  earth  will  be 
destroyed  by  fire  or  flood,  just  as  we  drown  or  cre- 
mate anything ;  but  that  cannot  occur  wholly  while  the 
earth  has  life.  Long  before  demise  of  our  founda- 
tion— the  earth — man,  like  rats  on  a  sinking  ship,  will 
have  fallen  under  the  care  of  a  later  globe  to  mother 
us,  so  nature  will  have  provided  for  the  infant  souls, 
late  of  the  earth  for  heaven,  to  accept  a  new  and 
greater  home. 

As  Father  of  us  all  will  continue  our  provider,  let 
there  be  increase  of  joy  and  not  fear.  Innumerable 
stars  in  our  sky  will  as  old  earth  offer  all  the  souls  of 
all  our  past,  a  home,  a  heaven  again. 

The  soul  has  had  ever  the  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion, for  back  to  our  earthly  beginning  has  been  a  like 
fear  for  humanity's  beginning  and  ending — of  a  sud- 
den, fearful  end  thereof,  of  the  earth.  But  really  we 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  91 

have  fearful  plagues,  wars,  panics,  even  since  general 
ignorance,  worst  of  them  all,  is  being  well  doctored. 

A.  B.  Cutner  sings  grandly  of  our  beautiful  "waters 
of  life/'  may  too  give  us  tenfold  more  of  poetic 
beauty  to  describe  our  hills  and  valleys,  of  holiest  land- 
scapes. 

I  want  to  go  back  to  the  rolling  seas, 

The  dark  blue  seas  and  the  skies, 
Where  the  breakers  roar  on  the  wild  seashore 

And  the  mad  gale  sighing  flies ! 

I  want  to  embrace  in  the  speeding  bark 

The  rapture  of  watery  main, 
While  the  billows  play  in  its  mighty  sway 

With  its  thunderous,  fierce  refrain ! 

I  long  to  go  back  to  the  crystal  deep 

With  its  rainbows  of  pearl  within, 
Where  the  mystic  gloom  slumb'ring  weeds  entomb, 

And  disport  gay  mermaids  in. 

I  long  to  go  back  to  the  straying  breeze, 

And  the  great  sea's  thundering  tide, 
To  the  ocean's  voice  and  the  ocean's  noise 

By  the  deep  blue  ocean's  side ! 

I  want  to  go  back  to  the  rolling  seas, 

The  dark  blue  seas  and  the  skies, 
For,  there  I'll  find  my  wandering  mind, 

Where  the  raging  hurricane  flies ! 

Many  find  themselves — themselves  to  blame — even 
after  many  reincarnations,  groveling  yet  and  "down 
and  out/'  wearing  the  fool's  cap,  maybe  gold-embroid- 
ered ;  the  fool  still  uneducated  in  all  the  higher  phases 
of  life.  Surely  these  are  not  fit  for  any  orthodox 
heaven,  when  as  proven  they  are  unfit  to  live  on  our 
humble  earth, — and  behave  themselves  properly ! 

Out  damned  spot !  is  the  curse  that  Shakespeare  put 


92  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

in  the  mouth  of  a'  Scotchman,  that  would  as  well  suit 
the  cross-bearer  everywhere.  The  murderer,  the  stig- 
matizer  of  the  greatest  of  mortals,  as  the  war-makers 
and  conquerors;  all  those  devoid  of  compassion  and 
rather  enjoying  cruelties,  else  the  Roman  cross  would 
never  have  been  invented.  Even  the  Primate  of  Man- 
kind, the  last  and  greatest  Jewish  prophet,  was  stabbed 
by  the  iron  nails  of  the  cross  to  endure  a  lingering 
death.  Jesus  yet  and  evermore  will  live — his  soul  goes 
marching  on,  giving  to  millions  rejoicing  or  hope, 
while  proud  and  cruel  Rome  will  soon  be  forgotten. 

IN  MY  DREAMS 

By  FRANKLIN  H.  HEALD 

In  my  dreams  a  roguish  boy 
Comes  to  me — in  mydreams. 

He  folds  his  little  arms 
Around  me — so  it  seems, 

And  tells  me  how  he  loves  me 
— in  my  dreams. 

In  my  dreams  I  of'times 
See  him  playing — in  my  dreams, 

Building  houses  with  his 
"Gifts"  and  toys — so  it  seems, 

And  he  always  builds  "for  papa" 
— in  my  dreams. 

In  my  dreams  he  writes  me 
Little  letters — in  my  dreams, 

Of  how  he  longs  to 
See  me — so  it  seems; 

All  his  postscripts  are  sweet  kisses 
— in  my  dreams. 

In  my  dreams  I  love 
To  linger — in  my  dreams. 

Were  it  not  for  living 
Loved  ones — to  me  it  seems, 

I  would  not  be  awakened 
— in  my  dreams. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  93 

EVELYN  HOPE 

By  ROBERT  BROWNING 

Beautiful  Evelyn  Hope  is  dead ! 

Sit  and  watch  by  her  side  an  hour. 
That  is  her  book-shelf,  this  her  bed; 

She  plucked  that  piece  of  geranium-flower, 
Beginning  to  die  too,  in  the  glass ; 

Little  has  yet  been  changed,  I  think: 
The  shutters  are  shut,  no  light  may  pass 

Save  two  long  rays  through  the  hinge's  chink. 

Sixteen  years  old  when  she  died ! 

Perhaps  she  had  scarcely  heard  my  name; 
It  was  not  her  time  to  love ;  beside, 

Her  life  had  many  a  hope  and  aim, 
Duties  enough  and  little  cares, 

And  now  was  quiet,  now  astir, 
Till  God's  hand  beckoned  unawares, — 

And  the  sweet  white  brow  is  all  of  her. 

Is  it  too  late  then,  Evelyn  Hope? 

What,  your  soul  was  pure  and  true, 
The  good  stars  met  in  your  horoscope, 

Made  you  of  spirit,  fire,  and  dew — 
And  just  because  I  was  thrice  as  old, 

And  our  paths  in  the  world  diverged  so  wide, 
Each  was  naught  to  each,  must  I  be  told? 

We  were  fellow  mortals,  naught  beside? 

No,  indeed !  for  God  above 

Is  great  to  grant,  as  mighty  to  make, 
And  creates  the  love  to  reward  the  love : 

I  claim  you  still,  for  my  own  love's  sake ! 
Delayed  it  may  be  for  more  lives  yet, 

Through  worlds  I  shall  traverse,  not  a  few: 
Much  is  to  learn,  much  to  forget 

Ere  the  time  be  come  for  taking  you. 

But  the  time  will  come, — at  last  it  will, 

When,  Evelyn  Hope,  what  meant  (I  shall  say) 
In  the  lower  earth,  in  the  years  long  still, 

That  body  and  soul  so  pure  and  gay? 
Why  your  hair  was  amber,  I  shall  divine, 

And  your  mouth  of  your  own  geranium's  red — 
And  what  you  would  do  with  me,  in  fine, 

In  the  new  life  come  in  the  old  one's  stead. 


94  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

I  have  lived  (I  shall  say)  so  much  since  then, 

Given  up  myself  so  many  times, 
Gained  me  the  gains  of  various  men, 

Ransacked  the  ages,  spoiled  the  climes ; 
Yet  one  thing,  one,  in  my  soul's  full  scope, 

Either  I  missed  or  itself  missed  me : 
And  I  want  and  find  you,  Evelyn  Hope ! 

What  is  the  issue?  let  us  see! 

I  loved  you,  Evelyn,  all  the  while ! 

My  heart  seemed  full  as  it  could  hold; 
There  was  place  and  to  spare  for  the  frank  young  smile, 

And  the  red  young  mouth,  and  the  hair's  young  gold, 
So  hush, — I  will  give  you  this  leaf  to  keep : 

See,  I  shut  it  inside  the  sweet  cold  hand ! 
There,  that  is  our  secret :  go  to  sleep ! 

You  will  wake,  and  remember,  and  understand. 

One  having  ripe  experience  in  the  world  might 
whisper  to  the  devil  that  of  two  ways  for  destroying 
the  human  race — one  selfishness,  the  other  destruction 
of  modesty  and  worth  of  womankind.  While  in  all 
lower  races  the  women  were  slaves,  humanity  was  in- 
efficient, weak  and  every  way  in  savagery.  * 

The  church  today,  aristocratic,  depends  upon  women 
help  akin  to  her  slavery.  Acuteness,  that  amounts 
to  other  weaknesses  of  aristocracy,  as  Artemus  Ward 
tells  an  experience  of  an  emphatic  showman  who 
took  advantage  to  show  an  eclipse  for  profit.  He  set 
up  a  tent  open  at  the  top,  and  harangued  to  folks  on 
his  front:  "Chance  to  see  an  eclipse  in  all  its  glory. 
Admission  ten  cents  only!"  Others  pursue  "money- 
changing"  in  church  like  in  the  open-top  tent,  a  wor- 
shipful place  to  see  God!  (He  is  within  you.)  We 
all  know  that  pure  religion  and  undefiled,  is  as  free  to 
all  as  our  glorious  air.  Why  pay  to  see  God  or  an 
eclipse  ? 

We  hear  constantly  from  the  feeble  prophets,  pre- 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  95 

dictions  that  the  world  would  soon  go  up  in  smoke,  * 
be  burnt.  Others  say  at  such  and  such  a  date,  our 
footstool  would  be  exceedingly  moist!  All  from  the 
Word  of  God.  (Whose  translation?)  So  the  elect 
put  on  robes  of  righteousness,  and  on  hilltops  tire  of 
waiting  for  the  great  event,  appoint  a  new  date,  to 
have  the  ascension,  one  just  like  Elijah,  Moses,  Jesus ; 
but  there  is  no  room  in  heaven  for  chariots,  horses, 
old  clothes,  etc.,  even  with  the  tentative  home  in 
heaven  located.  Go  and  assist  the  next  Elijah  and 
others.  Put  teams  under  shelter — but  only  on  earth; 
also  pack,  until  next  call,  all  robes. 

Our  latest  abuse  of  the  blessed  Book  is  to  fill  it  fuller 
of  miracles,  world's  ends,  and  foolish  prophecies. 

Reincarnation  in  all  of  history's  pages  stands  side 
by  side  with  other  theories.  In  the  Christian  dispen- 
sation are  so  many  references. 

Christians  fled  in  fear  and  sadness ; 
Jews  were  wrought  to  cruel  madness ; 
Mary  stood  the  cross  beside. 

We  have  no  truer  account,  in  short,  of  that  age  of 
Jesus,  than  this  Catholic  hymn  discloses.  On  the  cross, 
amidst  tortures,  he  had  nothing  to  say  against  his 
cowardly  followers — who  so  lately  discussed  their  ex- 
pectations of  rewards  or  promotions  the  highest  at- 
tainable in  that  kingdom  of  the  righteous  they  had 
poor  comprehension  of.  Enemies  of  Jesus  were 
divided,  some  of  the  established  church;  the  others 
liars  against  the  Prophet:  that  he  desired  an  earthly 
throne  as  the  conquering  Romans  had. 

The  tortures  so  crazed  Jesus,  evidently,  that  he  gave 
a  helpless,  desponding  cry,  "My  God!  hast  thou  for- 
saken me ! !" 


96  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

It  was  well  to  call  this  greatest  of  sons  the  fore- 
runner, for  the  time  had  not  arrived  evidently  for  a 
spiritual  era;  in  fact,  2000  years  passed  later  and  the 
hell-hounds  barked  for  "our  rewards  in  heaven !" 
They  for  the  glory  of  God  were  murdering,  burning 
alive,  or  quartering  infidels  and  witches. 

Among  our  feebler-minded  or  lazy  calling  them- 
selves the  annointed — and  what  for? — who  seat  them- 
selves with  aristocrats,  dogs  of  war,  etc.,  and  live 
sumptuously  upon  church  tithes,  can  be  called  modern 
Levites.  "Walking  on  the  other  side/*  seeing  no 
manly  path  of  duty;  and  poor  or  helpless  of  us  mor- 
tals they  see  not.  I  feel,  we  will  have  no  churches 
of  Christ  and  houses  of  gods  to  reckon  with  Good 
Samaritan  worshippers,  in  the  good  time  coming. 
Servants  may  become  masters  and  well  fitted  for  the 
places  of  command;  then  these  fitter  rulers  may  kick 
away  those  warring  and  expensive  of  the  humankind 
now  in  power.  Our  beloved  Lincoln  was  one  of  the 
lowly  kind,  and  said,  "God  must  love  the  poor,  he 
made  so  many  of  us  such/'  In  the  school  of  life,  those 
of  supreme  intelligence  may  not  be  kept  forever  in  the 
lower  classes. 

Men  and  women  of  the  shady  class,  night  birds, 
soiled  doves,  gamblers  who  think  the  world  owes 
them  a  living — which  it  does  not;  must  in  the  new 
order  be  eliminated.  Creatures  in  nature  kill  their 
drones,  when  the  cruel  necessity  comes ;  this  their  evo- 
lution as  others  surely  "the  voice  of  God/' 

That  eternal  riddle,  life  and  death,  the  here  and  the 
hereafter,  are  of  more  importance  to  all,  old  and 
young,  than  pleasing  sights  of  movies,  or  sounds  from 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  97 

gabfests  in  tavern  or  temple — as  the  saying  is,  these 
sounds  come  in  at  one  ear  and  go  out  the  other.  When 
dying,  the  great  Goethe  exclaimed,  "More  light!"  as 
evidently  bursting  from  the  hereafter  it  may  be  sur- 
mised. John  Burroughs,  dying  lately,  was  not  clear 
of  the  world,  yet  asked,  "Are  we  near  home?"  I 
have  a  last  photo  of  him — it  should  never  have  been 
taken — showing  his  uneasiness,  almost  his  torture,  as 
his  last  writings  are  forshadowings  of. 

Lowell  has  an  expression :  "They  met  by  chance  in 
the  usual  way,"  in  life  yet  and  youth.  Shakespeare 
said  of  his  beloved  mate,  "Ann  Hathaway,  she  hath 
a  way  "that  he  never  would  forget  even  in  realms  of 
the  blest." 

So  it  is  with  all  the  living,  love  and  sympathy 
deepens  whenever  we  "sing  of  the  brave  and  the  true." 
Will  we  meet  again?  Surely,  if  we  belong  together  in 
life  and  in  death.  One  star  only  differs  from  another, 
in  power,  in  glory.  They  all  are  found  in  star 
clusters — moons,  habitable  globes,  and  that  center  of 
light! 

A  primate  among  the  living  of  2000  years  ago  gave 
us  the  key  that  is  of  the  soul  everywhere,  "I  give  you 
a  new  commandment,  love  one  another." 

We  have  almost  forgotten  this  best  of  all  sayings, 
that  surely  is  the  binding  element  in  life.  Our  houses 
fit  for  gods  are  very  stately,  but  those  therein  lack 
dreadfully  that  command  of  Jesus.  In  congregations 
you  may  begin  at  the  doors  to  cut  out  the  dead  wood. 
Rulers  of  men,  from  Pope  to  Indian  Chief,  are  more 
concerned  over  the  tinsels  and  the  monies,  in  this  life 
of  theirs,  than  anything  that  may  pertain  to  that  com- 


98  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

mand  to  ruler  and  ruled  I  have  quoted  above.  Ye 
thieves  and  those  fallen  among  thieves,  you  await  the 
Good  Samaritan,  alike  as  two  peas  you  are  to  be ! 

"Conscience  doth  make,"  says  Shakespeare,  "cow- 
ards of  us  all,"  and  of  all  the  most  in  need,  those  in 
authority.  Ye  who  are  principals  should  be  servants, 
caretakers  of  those  who  need  your  care.  If  you  were 
on  the  heavenly  path  and  ready  to  sing  as  chanticler 
does  after  close  of  earth's  night-time,  then  feel  the 
joys  of  life,  and  of  those  little  ones  coming  back  to 
earth  purified,  surely  you  could  and  should  preserve 
here  that  heavenly  jewel,  compassion. 

Here  on  earth,  be  not  as  the  worms  of  the  dust, 
loveless — for  why  a  heaven  for  creatures  pitiless? 
Words,  mere  words,  mean  little,  and  wealth  less. 
When  there  must  be  ingathering,  the  good  harvest, 
spread  the  bounties  thereof.  The  earth  surely  is  a 
good  school. 

It  seems  that  the  great  reborn,  for  a  purpose  are 
sent  us  in  groups,  in  "star  systems,"  I  might  say. 
Milton  and  Shakespeare ;  Lincoln  and  Grant.  In  Ro- 
man times,  to  checkmate  the  cruelties  of.  the  era  came 
Jesus,  greatest  prophet  of  all  time.  Then  democracy 
rose  in  its  very  earnestness.  This  republic  of  ours  was 
the  result  of  the  great  upheaval — by  the  people,  for 
the  people — and  in  two  of  the  leading  governments  of 
Europe,  kings  were  slaughtered;  since,  the  slowed- 
down  solemnities  of  the  past,  the  aristicrats  are  as 
tame  as  rabbits.  "Let  us  have  peace,"  said  Grant. 
A  writer  in  N.  A.  Review  says,  "Neither  Olympus  nor 
Calvary  (war  nor  religion)  dominates  the  scene,  for 
man  is  the  great  heir  of  both."  So  both  have  had  their 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  99 

day  of  dominion,  indolence,  and  extravagance  that 
overburdened  our  time,  and  left  mankind  beggared  in 
lands  "flowing  with  milk  and  honey." 

Let  us  hope  for  another  star  group  of  immortals 
with  powers  to  rebuild  those  civilizations  that  "pro- 
gressives" since  have  in  digging  for  gold,  ruined,  made 
the  lands  deserts.  Halt  the  fighting  storekeepers  that 
bring  on  world  wars,  so  we  may  have  world  peace,  a 
society  free  from  sex  suicide,  etc.,  to  weaken  strongest 
of  nations. 

But  give  me  one  clear  hour  at  close  of  day, 

And  whisper,  as  the  darkling  shadows  fall, 
The  names  of  friends  I  lost  along  the  way, 
The  faithful  friends  I  can  no  more  recall. 

And  while  their  names  upon  my  lips  are  set, 
Oh,  speed  the  silent  tides  that  I  must  stem, 

That  ere  again  I  slumber  or  forget, 
I  may  begin  my  eager  quest  of  them. 

— L.  Dodge. 

In  this  fervor  for  reunion  in  spirit  we  have  an  idea 
of  rebirth  akin  and  more  real  than  those  of  earth 
wholly.  Religion  may  still  keep  the  key,  the  password, 
but  dogmas  about  the  infinite  mystery  must  pass. 
Education  makes  us  more  and  more  at  home  in  this 
world  of  progress,  but  for  a  well-balanced  mind  the 
need  can  be  felt  for  a  night  of  the  soul,  a  higher  land 
of  delight,  felt  only  in  our  dreams  now  and  then. 
Passing  to  the  new  morn  again  for  a  coming  day,  by 
rebirth,  society  will  have  advanced  as  we  get  to  an 
age  for  appreciation.  Wonders  increase,  souls  in  all 
homes  with  love  and  compassion  as  the  religion  of 
Jesus  taught  and  to  be  understood  later ;  so  this  quiets 
our  fears  of  hell  and  purgatory,  man's  inventions 


100  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

surely;  so  we  can,  as  the  saying  is,  continue  if  neces- 
sary to  pour  oil  on  troubled  waters.  The  world  no 
longer  a  place  of  torture,  a  prison,  but  for  real  home 
life,  and  joys  of  nature  we  never  before  dreamed  of. 

As  Burroughs  said,  "satisfied  with  our  earth/' 
Whitman  in  his  joy  exclaimed,  "I  have  positively  ap- 
peared"— again ! 

A  well  known  writer  says:  "I  am  pessimistic  by 
night,  but  by  day  am  a  confirmed  optimist,  and  it  is 
the  days  that  have  stamped  my  life.  I  was  born  under 
a  lucky  star."  May  all  thy  rebirths  be  like  unto  this! 

Some  murmur  when  their  sky  is  clear 

And  wholly  bright  to  view 
If  one  small  speck  of  dark  appear 

In  their  great  heaven  of  blue. 
And  some  with  thankful  love  are  filled,  VH 

If  but  one  streak  of  light, 
One  ray  of  God's  great  mercy,  gild 

The  darkness  of  their  night. 

— Richard  Cheneviv  Trench. 

All  life  is  a  school,  a  preparation,  a  purpose:  nor  can  we 
pass  current  in  a  higher  college,  if  we  do  not  undergo  the  tedium 
of  education  in  this  lower  one. — Author  Unknown. 

"Nature  is  ourselves  written  large/'  says  John  Bur- 
roughs. I  have  dwelt  upon  some  phases  of  early  hu- 
manity, as  exhibited  by  scriptural  traditions,  a  species 
of  ancient  history.  We  shed  past  life,  just  as  life 
ascends  to  higher  light. 

On  earth  "in  the  beginning"  may  mean  only  back  to 
savagery.  Prof.  Osterhout,  studying  our  seaside  kelps, 
found  death  always  going  on,  as  with  life,  the  turn  of 
the  scales,  he  states,  in  turn  break  to  mysterious  life. 
As  with  vegetable  life,  the  A,  M,  B,  etc.,  to  properties, 
say  of  the  kelp;  the  cell  means  life,  with  elemental 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  101 

forces  diminishing.  But  the  foundation  link  which 
joins  the  organic  with  the  inorganic  elements,  in  all 
living  forms,  chloriphel  in  plants,  and  diatomic  in  ani- 
mal features,  means  the  unthinkable  spectacle — bridg- 
ing life  and  death. 

A  slight  change  in  the  thermal  condition  of  the 
globe,  or  some  real  flood  of  pernicious  fluid,  would 
sweep  us  all  to  the  discard — and  this  may  happen  any 
moment — would  happen  if  the  creator  was  a  mere 
divine  of  the  proselyting  order,  with  foolish  cry  of 
god,  god;  me,  me! 

This  would  be  far  less  cruel  than  has  religion  or 
Roman  power  inflicted,  to  say  nothing  about  ferocious 
quarterings  or  body  burnt  alive  because  of  "infidelity/' 
To  say  this  fair  earth  of  ours  is  not  good  enough  for 
the  righteous,  is  rather  laughable.  If  the  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth  made  anything  amiss,  it  was  man- 
kind, if  scriptures  are  truthful.  But  do  not  reckon  as 
of  the  higher  light  the  mere  rushlight  that  humans 
hold  up. 

Man,  like  the  rest  of  all  life,  will  be  improved  by 
every  evolution,  yea,  by  every  rebirth.  Prayers  of  the 
righteous  availeth  much  in  the  way  of  directing  atten- 
tion to  future  betterments.  If  we  find  that  after  a 
general  hope  in  mankind  there  is  sure  comfort  for 
death  that  evolution  follows  evolution,  a  theory  of  re- 
incarnation has  no  terrors,  as  death  now  with  uncer- 
tainty. Whatsoever  you  may  think  of  heaven,  purga- 
tory and  hell,  the  hope  of  coming  to  the  old  home 
land  may  be  cheerful,  may  be  joyous,  as  you  will  come 
as  come  all  the  living  from  a  state  of  simplicity,  and 
ignorance. 


102  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Philosophy  and  theology  agree  that  matter  is  a 
coarseness  as  compared  with  spirit.  See  wheat  grow 
up  only  with  assistance  of  silica  in  the  stalk.  In  the 
egg  of  every  creature  coming  to  life  are  the  elements 
of  body  and  spirit.  In  the  body  goes  the  earth's  fer- 
tility fitted  for  spirit  later,  reincarnation.  Life's  en- 
velope contains  the  new  letter  of  credit  for  both  life 
and  higher  light. 

As  I  made  reference,  the  first  of  life  in  the  world 
was  when  one-cell  particle  of  matter  joined  the  one 
nearest  of  opposite  sex,  or  polarity.  Even  dust  hardly 
discernible  has  the  quality  of  circular  attachments  to 
other  particles  of  opposite  polarity.  This  law  con- 
tinues to  the  highest  and  greatest  of  aggregations, 
heavenly  orbs  and  suns.  Fish  and  other  of  the  near- 
brainless  creatures,  cold-blooded,  have  only  external 
contacts  of  polarity.  The  vulgarest  of  all  creatures  is 
mankind,  with  a  literature  filled  with  love  gush  and 
art  with  naked  women  and  men — models.  Whitman 
told  me  the  poem  he  wrote  to  kill  sex  vulgarity  was 
the  very  one  that  is  loathed  by  all  hypocrites  and 
vulgar-minded. 

Mr.  Heald  lays  much  stress  upon  polarity  of  heat 
and  cold.  This  twin  force  seems  to  move  everything. 
In  the  earlier  stage  of  our  world,  the  oceans  being 
warm  and  earth  supercharged  with  fertility,  the  vege- 
tation was  crowding  and  decaying,  to  accummulate  for 
ages  and  ages  coal,  crude  oil,  etc.  Showing  that  our 
present  period  is  that  of  earth's  sear  and  yellow  leaf — 
autumn  of  the  old  man  earth — he  is  beginning  to  exact 
extra  clothing.  Those  of  us  not  being  minded  of  coal 
oil  products  and  remnant  of  coal  left  us,  are  bethink- 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  103 

ing  of  getting  nearer  the  sun.  Nature  will  perform 
the  operation — dissolve  his  cold  remains  in  our  sur- 
charged neighboring  sun — then  we  will  be  warm ! 

The  passage  from  suns  to  earths,  to  form  all  the 
globes  of  the  heavens,  is  very  like  the  spirit  of  all  the 
living  being  reborn. 

There  are  honest  rich  men  as  there  are  dishonest 
poor,  and  vice  versa.  You  see  the  profiteers  making 
all  kinds  of  lying  promises,  advertising  tricks,  so- 
called  bargains,  to  call  attention  of  those  who  imagine 
the  greatest  call  is  also  the  biggest  bargain.  Hence 
so  many  millions  of  dollars  spent  annually  in  very 
gaudy  public  advertising.  Duplicity,  dishonest  trading, 
come  of  craftiness  and  selfishness,  so  called  provident 
ones  are  also,  maybe  not  honest  ones  of  earth.  "Bar- 
gains" turn  the  heads  of  the  weak, — those  Jesus  came 
to  succor  as  lambs  he  would  hold.  But  ye  would  not. 
Souls  differ  of  course,  individually,  and  weak  ones 
pass  th£  Lake  of  God  time  and  again  but  are  not  re- 
made— only  purified. 

If  anywhere  in  this  essay  the  writer  makes  allusion 
to  the  Other  Life — which  no  mortal  can  know — please 
lay  this  upon  weakness  of  human  nature  training 
among  story-tellers,  mind-readers,  spiritualists,  preach- 
ers— all  who  work  you  for  a  fat  living.  Soothsayers 
all  telling  you  about  gods  and  higher  abode  you  can 
get  for  so  much  at  the  agency  on  earth. 

Animals  meek  and  harmless,  or  nearly  so,  are  called 
wild  beasts  and  monsters  in  all  languages.  This  is  far 
from  truthful,  and  shows  our  unkindness  and  selfish- 
ness towards  the  little  people.  A  lizard  not  longer 
than  your  foot  is  a  gila  monster. 


104  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Even  an  Ice  Age  has  its  uses,  especially  after  rank 
growths  in  an  age  of  wonderful  vegetation.  The  great 
covering  of  water  in  form  of  ice  will  then  give  way 
to  stretches  freed  from  former  deserts,  and  an  age  of 
coal  and  oil,  accessible  beneath  or  at  surface  of  the 
ground. 

"Jesus  set  small  store  by  charity.  The  philanthropy 
of  almsgiving  was  to  Him  a  mere  cloak  for  the  im- 
perfections and  inequities  of  human  relations.  He  put 
all  the  emphasis  of  His  teaching  and  example  upon 
justice  and  love.  In  a  word  where  these  prevailed 
charity  would  be  unnecessary.  We  have  traveled  so 
far  from  the  ideals  of  Jesus  it  is  not  easy  to  restore 
them.  But  there  is  no  other  way  to  find  a  permanent 
solution  for  the  troubles  that  disturb  us.  His  road  is 
the  only  road.  It  involves  sacrifice.  We  cannot  avoid 
the  cross.  But  beyond  Calvary  lies  the  realization  of 
our  hopes. — Chicago  Post. 

The  fool  and  his  money  are  soon  parted ;  abroad, 
the  Wilhelms,  Henrys  and  Georges  nowadays  kill  no 
dragons,  yet  their  proceedings  cost  the  people  billions 
in  money  and  countless  die  in  fear  of  blue-blooded 
autocrats  such  as  these — bringing  on  costly  wars.  The 
churchly  Pope  and  the  financially  poor  were  born 
exactly  alike  to  all  appearance.  If  I  was  born  in  an 
oven  would  I  be  a  loaf  of  bread?  asks  the  witty  Irish- 
man. In  one  and  all  the  tribes  of  man  a  spirit  of 
nature  rules.  Scientists  could  not  explain  the  concern 
of  the  get-rich-quicks  how  to  convert  other  metals 
into  gold,  or  how  to  secure  the  desired  metal  from 
sea  water;  but  an  evil-minded  man  may  handle  mil- 
lions of  our  money,  for  his  profiteering,  to  do  the 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  105 

trick.  How  long  will  such  tricksters  have  us  at  their 
mercy,  or  grabbers  (even  for  charity  money)  keep 
begging  "for  Jesus"? 

A  well-balanced  healthy  life  never  tires  of  earth. 
That  is  more  possible  than  might  be  surmised  of  the 
old  heavenly  vision  of  churchmen  who  sing  over  and 
over  Glory  to  God  in  the  Highest !  Praise  Him  all  ye 
Saints!!  whatever  said  about  (imagined)  surround- 
ings, trumpets,  golden  streets,  and  the  very  sands  are 
precious  stones  everywhere  for  everybody.  The  priests 
never  look  at  nature,  I  presume,  with  trained  eyes. 
John  Burroughs  loved  the  wild  woods  as  nature  al- 
ways has  very  beautiful  and  abounding  life.  John 
Muir  loved  the  greater  view  of  mountains,  and  all  of 
us  might  exclaim  at  dying,  as  did  Humboldt,  Oh,  for 
another  hundred  years ! 

Scientists  may  explain  something  of  sunlight  and  of 
summer  lightning,  but  these  would  be  trifling  things — 
of  the  earth,  earthy,  as  compared  with  seizing  upon 
inner  light — that  never  was  on  sea  nor  shore.  You 
may  see  movies  to  represent  god  Jupiter  tossing  up 
streaks  of  lightning,  but  this  is  not  explaining  elec- 
tricity, any  more  than  I  can  in  trying  to  tell  you  of  a 
pure  spiritual  element,  such  as  spiritualists  (?)  often 
try  to  be  familiar  with — knowledge  of  the  unseen. 
Nearest  the  Greatest  Prophet  came  to  an  explanation 
was,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you ! 

Sympathy  plays  a  great  part,  but  attraction  of  mes- 
merism has  greater  effect.  Watch  movements  of 
birds,  etc.,  in  flocks.  You  note  the  oneness,  the  unity 
in  movements. 


106  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Verses  in  Yale  Review  by  C.  M.  Lewis,  tell  an  old 
tale  of  a  statue : 

Pygmalion  paid  no  worship  to  the  warm  sun's  dazzling  beams, 

But  shrined  a  dim  ideal  in  the  temple  of  his  dreams.  .  .  . 

The  Cyprian  Aphrodite  heard  the  anguish  of  his  call. 

Zeus  frowned;  she  heeded  not;  and  heard  not,  till  too  late, 

The  slow  relentless  tolling  of  the  iron  bells  of  fate: 

She  breathed  into  the  ivory  the  breath  of  carnal  life, 

And  to  a  mortal  dreamer  gave  his  dream — to  be  his  wife.  .  .  . 

Unnatural,  unspeakable,  filled  full  the  cup  of  fate, 

And  one  fair  child,  Adonis,  last  of  Pygmalion's  race, 

Avenged  on  Aphrodite  her  blushing  act  of  grace.  .  .  . 

For  down  here  in  the  valley,  secure  from  wind  and  weather, 

Is  the  true  hearts'  homing-place  for  me  and  mine  together. 

Writing  of  life  with  the  inner  light  of  the  impal- 
pable soul,  is  never  anything  practical — however  some 
may  believe  in  ghosts  or  "spirit  forms/'  Shakespeare's 
line  of  divergence  is  I  think  correct,  "from  whose 
bourne  no  traveler  returns."  This  conception  I  am  ad- 
vocating, rebirth,  for  "Far  down  here  in  the  valley, 
secure  from  wind  and  weather,  is  the  true  hearts' 
homing  place  for  me  and  mine  together." 

No  truer  conception  I  opine  ever  originated  in 
Greece  or  elsewhere — entire  separation  of  the  Here 
and  Hereafter.  Lo  heres  and  lo  theres,  like  those  of 
earlier  days  advocate  going  to  heaven  "with  their  boots 
on,"  very  evidently  not  the  true  life  and  inner  light. 

Kindness  to  the  poor  and  lower  animals  results 
often  in  the  harm  done  by  visitors  whose  motive  is 
the  exercise  of  a  dilettante  virtue.  It  is  more  difficult 
to  rejoice  with  those  that  do  rejoice  than  to  weep  with 
those  that  weep ;  for  good  fortune  awakens  envy,  but, 
as  has  been  shrewdly  said,  the  misfortunes  of  our 
friends  give  us  secret  pleasure.  While  there  can  be  no 
real  kindness  to  others  without  sympathy,  feelings  of 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  107 

sympathy  have,  in  themselves,  no  moral  quality.  With 
animals,  "regard  for  others"  terminates  early;  repro- 
duction and  care  of  offspring  are  little  more  than  in- 
stincts planted  in  the  physical  nature  and  needs  of 
animals/' 

If  what  is  known  as  human  lovemaking  were  only 
and  truly  holy,  we  would  hear  very  little  about  divorce. 
Even  birds  mate  without  "catawauling"  and  so  live 
as  pairs  mostly,  throughout  their  lives.  Isn't  it  at  last 
recognized  that  God  is  everywhere?  Are  matches, 
marriages,  made  in  heaven?  A  great  question  if  the 
latter  are  not,  as  it  would  preclude  divorces. 

Joaquin  Miller  is  rated  by  an  editor  of  L.  A.  Times, 
Mr.  Ford,  as  the  third  great  number  of  the  Overland 
group.  His  was  a  free  spirit,  brooking  no  restraint, 
an  impassioned  nature  instinct  with  the  love  of  the 
primitive  and  of  untrammeled  life.  Freedom  he  de- 
manded and  freedom  he  achieved  both  in  his  life  and 
in  his  poetry.  Born  in  Indiana,  he  was  brought  to 
Oregon  while  yet  a  child.  At  fifteen  he  threw  off  all 
restraint,  ran  away  from  home,  wandered  from  one 
California  mining  camp  to  another,  and  finally  took 
up  his  life  with  the  Indians.  This  was  the  life  that 
he  loved.  He  abandoned  himself  to  it  with  all  his 
ardor.  So  he  was  adopted  by  one  of  the  tribes  and 
married  the  chief's  daughter,  in  true  story-book  style. 
But  he  was  a  nomad  whom  the  Red  gods  called.  So 
he  packed  his  kit  and  trekked.  Nicaragua,  South 
America,  Europe,  the  Orient,  the  Rockies,  Alaska 
called  him  and  thither  he  went,  breathing  deeply  of 
the  free  air  of  romance  and  of  advanture. 

His  picturesque  garb,  with  flannel  shirt,  flowing  red 


108  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

tie,  high  top  boots,  into  which  his  corduroys  were 
tucked,  combined  with  his  unshorn  locks  to  make  him 
the  cynosure  of  all  eyes  when  he  was  in  England,  and 
it  was  here  that  his  verses  first  attracted  marked  at- 
tention. When  he  was  at  last  ready  to  settle  down  it 
was  on  the  hills  back  of  Oakland  that  he  built  his 
cabin.  Here  he  had  the  view  of  foothill,  bay  and 
ocean,  ever  changing  and  so  ever  new. 

His  poems  are  mostly  contained  in  "Songs  of  the 
Sierras/*  "Songs  of  the  Sunfands"  and  "Songs  of  the 
Mexican  Seas."  Though  highly  individual  in  form, 
they  have  a  free  musical  sweep,  are  full  of  color  and 
of  beauty  and  of  the  romance  of  the  West.  Unde- 
terred as  they  are  in  form  as  in  thought  they  created 
a  literary  sensation  and  gave  a  new  impetus  to  poetry. 
With  Walt  Whitman  it  may  be  justly  said  that  Joaquin 
Miller  enlarged  the  conception  of  verse  both  as  to 
form  and  content." 

"Lord,  Lord,  when  thou  comest  into  thy  kingdom, 
remember  me !"  It  started  with  the  first  followers  of 
Jesus,  will  continue  while  selfishness  exists  in  man- 
kind. The  Romans,  most  famous  of  human  butchers, 
ceased  conquering  neighboring  nations  long  enough  to 
look  out  for  the  heavenly  "rewards,"  becoming  Chris- 
tians. Spain  raised  the  Cross  and  blotted  out  civiliza- 
tion on  the  American  continent.  All  Christian  na- 
tions have  yet  wars  and  rumors  of  wars ;  yet  base  their 
lamblike  ethics  upon  him  who  had  said,  "Put  up  thy 
sword!"  Ministers  of  Christ  under  whatever  sect 
have  claimed  exclusive  guardianship  of  the  truth  of 
God  as  it  is  in  Jesus!  None  of  these  show  more 
Christian  resignation  than  did  the  late  John  Bur- 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  109 

roughs,  whom  churchmen  do  not  accept  in  fellowship. 
He  said: 

All  serene  I  fold  my  hands  and  wait, 
Nor  care  for  wind,  nor  tide,  nor  sea ; 

I  rave  no  more  'gainst  time  or  fate, 
For  lo!  my  own  shall  come  to  me. 

Problems  of  good  and  evil — God  and  Devil — are 
oldest,  yet  freshest,  that  man  has  to  deal  with.  It  was 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  yea,  tree  of  life  and  its  fruits. 
According  to  Paradise  Lost,  the  great  poem  of  Milton, 
this  same  problem  was  solved  in  heaven. 

When  was  beginning  of  earth,  and  when  the  close 
of  its  life,  no  human  can  guess  aright.  As  we  all  have 
hopes  of  higher  and  better  life,  there  may  be  in  our 
rebirth,  some  better  world  for  us.  For  the  weak  in 
any  sense,  mind  or  character,  may  be  born  into  exist- 
ence lower  down  the  scale,  or  tribulations  somewhere 
met  to  complete  us.  "If  I  had  life  to  live  over  again !" 
Surely  you  will  always  on  your  soul  have  the  right 
"tab." 

Sometimes  my  Conscience  says,  says  he, 

"Don't  you  know  me?" 

And  I,  says  I,  skeered  through  and  through, 

"Of  course  I  do. 

t  You  air  a  nice  chap  ever'  way, 

\  I'm  here  to  say! 

/  You  make  me  cry — you  make  me  pray, 

And  all  them  good  things  thataway — 

That  is,  at  night.     Where  do  you  stay 

Burin'  the  day?" 

And  then  my  Conscience  says,  onc't  more, 

"You  know  me — shore?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  says  I,  a-trimblin'  faint, 

"You're  jes'  a  saint! 

Your  ways  is  all  so  holy- right, 

I  love  you  better  ever'  night 

You  come  around, — 'tel  plum  daylight, 

When  you  air  out  o'  sight !" 


110  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

And  then  my  Conscience  sort  o'  grits 

His  teeth,  and  spits 

On  his  two  hands  and  grabs,  of  course, 

Some  old  remorse, 

And  beats  me  with  the  big  butt-end 

O'  that  thing— -'tel  clostest  friend 

'Ud  hardly  know  me.    "Now,  says  he, 

"Be  keerful  as  you'd  orto  be 

And  allus  think  o'  me !" 

— Riley. 

Seekers  after  truth,  teachers  and  not  preachers  only, 
were  at  the  time  of  Jesus  located  possibly  in  Greece  or 
other  countries  favoring  education.  Solon  gave  as  a 
truth,  that  until  after  death  there  can  be  no  man  called 
happy.  Grecian  thinkers  made  Harmony  the  touch- 
stone, for  the  soul's  betterment.  Socrates  said  man 
from  his  own  fear  of  death,  unprepared,  reckoned  the 
swan's  song  before  dying  a  soul-cry  of  sorrow:  his 
own  actions,  condemned  to  death  by  poison,  shows  the 
grandeur  of  a  brave  man  going  hence.  He  referred 
to  Anaxagorus  as  applying  himself  to  thoughts  of  re- 
birth in  his  meditations  about  life,  and  says  this  sage 
taught  that  mind  is  the  cause  and  controlling  power  of 
the  universe.  Many  were  the  theories  rife  in  ancient 
times  as  to  the  universe, — some  saying  the  earth  was 
encompassed  by  a  vortex,  declaring  heavenly  bodies 
were  held  in  orbital  place — yet  still  the  notion  that  our 
earth  was  flat  prevailed. 

A  few  blest  souls  that  clearly  see  the  right, 

Who  love  the  truth  and  have  a  steadfast  will, 
Live  life  to  do  the  right  in  love,  not  might, 

To  seek  the  truth  with  zeal  which  naught  can  still, 
To  help  those  stumbling  on  life's  rugged  way. 

These  are  content  for  now  to  know  in  part, 
Because  they  inly  feel  that  God  bears  sway, 

And  peace,  eternal  peace,  dwells  in  their  heart. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  111 

The  oldest  road, 

And  the  craziest  road  of  all ; 
Straight  it  goes  to  the  witch's  shade 

As  it  did  in  the  days  of  Saul; 
And  nothing  has  changed  of  the  sorrows  in  store 
For  such  as  go  down  on  the  road  to  Endor. 

The  earth  is  yet  a  strange  land  to  most  of  us;  then 
why  wish  for  any  better?  The  songs  of  birds  and  in 
childhood  with  thy  mother  are  surely  sweetness  of  life. 
The  scenery  here  is  so  entrancing  that  all  the  fancies 
of  the  most  pious  of  artists  have  never  pictured  a 
heaven  of  hereafter  with  the  sublime  beauties  and  tints 
of  earth.  So  let  us  all  be  content  that  we  are  here — 
and  here  maybe  to  stay  at  intervals !  Tarry  in  earth's 
grand  scenery  forever  is  the  highest  conception  of 
bliss  and  beneficence — if  we  are  beneficent!  When  I 
point  to  the  doctrine  of  transmigration — not  new — as 
return  after  death  in  a  rebirth,  it  may  be  height  of 
most  heavenly  desires — for  Home,  Sweet  Home,  is  the 
greatest  of  songs  for  mortals,  and  to  meet  again  a 
loving  mother  is  sure  haven  in  the  highest  point  of 
bliss.  Our  scriptures,  our  society  affairs,  our  greatest 
longings,  fall  far  short  of  this  hope  of  being  again  in 
father. 

God,  Father,  Maker,  Ruler,  are  names  of  a  higher 
force  that  must  remain  forever  nameless  in  the  spirit. 
Be  content  with  blessings,  and  fulfill  thy  duty  as  duty 
comes  along  the  Great  Chain  of  Being,  and  no  need 
for  worship — except  in  every  moment.  To  thine  -own 
self  be  true,  here  on  earth  and  keep  peace  with  all  the 
living ! 

As  an  echo  of  times  of  religious  persecution  in 
France,  I  find  this  extract  from  a  story  by  Gilbert 
Parker : 


112  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

"To  her  the  vesper  bell  was  the  symbol  of  tyranny 
and  persecution.  All  that  she  had  borne,  all  that  her 
father  had  borne,  the  thought  of  the  home  lost,  the 
name  ruined,  the  heritage  dispossessed,  the  red  war  of 
the  Camisards,  the  rivulets  of  blood  in  the  streets  of 
her  loved  Rouen,  smote  upon  her  mind,  and  drove  her 
to  her  knees  in  the  forest  glade,  her  hands  upon  her 
ears  to  shut  out  the  sound  of  the  bell.  .  .  And  a  reve- 
lation seemed  to  have  come  upon  her,  and,  for  the 
first  time,  she  was  a  Huguenot  to  the, core.  Hitherto 
she  had  suffered  for  her  religion  because  it  was  her 
father's  religion,  and  because  he  had  suffered,  and  be- 
cause her  lover  had  suffered.  Her  mind  had  been 
convinced,  her  loyalty  had  ben  unwavering,  her  words 
for  the  great  cause  had  measured  well  with  her  deeds. 
But  new  senses  were  suddenly  born  in  her,  new  eyes 
were  given  to  her  mind,  new  powers  for  suffering  to 
her  soul." 

Religious  intolerance  does  not  apply  to  any  one 
nation.  England,  Italy,  Spain,  Germany  have  shown 
the  same  hall-mark  of  aristocracy.  Mohammedans 
and  Eastern  Christians  have  kept  themselves  poor  try- 
ing to  enforce  certain  doctrines  upon  those  who  dif- 
fered from  them  severally.  As  free  as  is  America,  the 
same  intolerance  prevails.  The  latest  get-together  are 
followers  of  Wesley,  that  church  as  others  having  in 
slavery  times  in  this  country  agreed  to  part,  because 
human  bondage  was  approved  of  by  Southern  Meth- 
odists. The  devil  and  the  deep  sea  yawned ;  but  as 
public  morals  and  education  advance,  religionists  at 
this  later  age  of  aristocratical  failures  has  caused  a 
stampede  of  churches  to  the  side  of  freedom.  In  this 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  113 

age  of  Lincoln  what  miracles  of  common  sense!  A 
laughable  combination — salvation  and  army — a  con- 
cept to  link  God  with  Devil  must  go,  or  fighting  Chris- 
tians have  revival. 


How  round  gray  arch  and  column  lone 

The  spirit  of  the  Old  Time  broods, 
And  sighs  in  all  the  winds  that  moan 

Along  the  sandy  solitudes ! 

In  thy  tall  cedars,  Lebanon, 

I  have  not  heard  the  nations'  cries, 
Nor  seen  thy  eagles  swooping  down 

Where  buried  Tyre  in  ruin  lies. 

Nor  watched  in  midnight's  solemn  time 
The  garden  where  His  prayer  and  moan, 

Wrung  by  His  Sorrow  and  our  Crime, 
Rose  to  ONE  listening  ear  alone. 

I  have  not  kissed  the  rock-hewn  grot, 

Where  in  His  mother's  arms  He  lay. 
Nor  knelt  upon  the  sacred  spot 
Where  last  His  footsteps  pressed  the  clay; 

Nor  looked  on  that  sad  mountain  head, 
Nor  smote  my  sinful  breast  where  wide 

His  arms  to  fold  the  world  He  spread, 
And  bowed  to  bless — and  died! 

Speaking  of  spiritual  impressions,  inheritances,  we 
approach  an  old  theme,  reincarnation.  First  of  intel- 
lectual race  inheritances  seem  of  Greek  or  earlier 
origin.  Belief  in  gods  as  souls  of  earthly  heroes,  was 
followed  by  the  Druid  concept  of  golden  boughs  (seen 
as  spirit,  not  with  the  mortal  eye),  was  in  the  Bible 
of  the  Hebrews  recorded  as  fact  in  the  priest's  pres- 
ence of  the  unknown  god,  the  vision. 

When  the  aircraft  in  use  gets  old-fashioned,  the 
other,  a  still  finer  element,  comes  next  to  be  exploited. 


114  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Already  other  waves  in  the  wireless-message  contriv- 
ance, is  much  in  use. 

Air  and  electricity  were  long  mysterious  agents  to 
early  races  of  mankind.  A  god,  Jupiter,  is  represented 
as  above,  handling  the  lightning !  Now  that  electricity 
is  well  in  control  by  man,  and  air  heavier  than  ether, 
we  will  require  to  go  higher  yet  for  latest  experiments. 
"Heaven"  will  come  next  in  our  evolution,  to  get  to 
the  top !  Or  we  may  be  delving  for  heat  toward  earth's 
center ! 

Man  sees  where  nature  is  blind ;  he  takes  a  straight 
cut  where  she  goes  far  around.  In  him  she  has  added 
reason  to  her  impulse,  conscience  to  her  blind  forces, 
self-denial  to  her  self-indulgence,  the  power  of  choice 
to  her  iron  necessity.  How  well  she  has  done  by  man, 
man  alone  knows.  How  much  he  is  dependent  upon 
her,  he  alone  knows;  how  completely  he  is  a  part  of 
her,  he  alone  knows.  We  may  call  man  an  insurgent 
in  her  world,  as  an  English  scientist  does,  but  he  is 
her  insurgent ;  she  inspires  him  to  insurrection  and  she 
puts  his  weapons  in  his  hands.  His  cause  is  her  cause 
and  his  victories  are  her  victories. 

Only  by  personifying  nature  in  this  way  and  stand- 
ing apart  from  her  and  regarding  her  objectively,  can 
we  contrast  her  methods  and  her  spirit  with  our  own. 
The  mother  she  has  been  to  us  becomes  apparent.  In 
spite  of  all  her  shortcomings  and  delays  and  round- 
about methods,  here  we  are,  and  here  we  wish  to 
remain." — John  Burroughs  in  Yale  Review,  Jan.,  1920. 

Our  purpose  in  this  book  is  to  advocate  the  old 
theory,  reincarnation,  our  return  time  and  again  to  the 
physical  life.  It  is  no  new  belief  for  this  progressive 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  115 

age,  even  the  most  devout  among  us  believing  in  the 
doctrine  that  Jesus  will  be  born  again.  So  say  we  all ; 
the  new  birth  giving  this  conjecture,  as  to  whether 
we  shall  know  each  other?  I  might  venture  here  a 
thought  that  if  a  family  had  been  harmonious,  will 
not  part  when  the  night  called  death  passes  over — as 
sure  as  day  in  the  spirit;  but  the  old  names  and  old 
places  are  of  the  past,  so  only  the  spirit  keeps  alive. 

Jesus  Christ,  the  Logos,  the  Divine  Word,  was  a 
new  revelation,  though  Plato  had  "longed  for  some 
divine  word,  if  only  it  might  be."  To  the  Greeks  and 
Jews  the  new  phase  of  spirituality  was  a  stumbling 
block,  and  the  Prophet  was  crucified;  but  fortunately 
not  all  his  teachings  perished,  as  the  new  era  had  a 
means  of  preserving  such  writings  as  escaped  censor- 
ing and  burning  by  the  priests.  In  a  summing  up  of 
doctrines  said  to  have  been  given  the  world  by  Jesus, 
there  stands,  a  recent  reviewer  says, — simple  home  life 
with  an  atmosphere  of  love  and  truth  and  intelli- 
gence; where  real  life  was  not  lost  sight  of  and  ob- 
scured by  the  then  (church)  refinements  or  atrophied 
by  pleasures;  where  ordinary  needs  and  common 
duties  were  the  daily  facts:  where  God  was  a  con- 
stant and  friendly  presence.  The  prophet,  however, 
was  being  brought  into  the  higher  light — the  spiritual 
phase  of  Being  very  far  above  divine  miracles,  lo- 
heres,  and  other  claptrap. 

Cheer fulest  of  peoples  it  seems  are  races  that  long 
endured  slavery,  and  now  thank  God  (not  man)  for 
freedom.  The  Hebrews  of  old  when  captured  and 
sent  among  vegetarians  in  the  garden  of  Paradise 
region,  had  longings  for  the  fleshpots  of  Egypt,  the 


116  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

old  home.  Scriptures  recount  their  query,  How  can 
we  sing  the  songs  of  Zion  in  a  strange  land?  Cheer- 
fulness did  not  desert  the  race,  howsoever  attacks  of 
homesickness.  Vegetarian  king  of  Babylon  stirred 
their  wit  to  remark,  he  "ate  grass  like  an  ox." 

Quick  wit  is  not  lacking  with  our  Afro-Americans. 
Mrs.  Pickett  tells  of  Old  Mose,  ex-slave,  who  fished 
later  for  his  sustenance  along  the  James  river.  A  New 
York  visitor  at  the  Pickett  plantation  asked  Mose 
what  price  he  received  for  diamond-backs?  "  'Bout  a 
dollar  a  dozen."  "Why,  at  the  New  York  hotels  you 
can  sell  them  at  $10  apiece!"  Mose,  swelling  up  with 
fun,  said,  "You  see  dat  bucket  o'  water;  hit's  wuf  a 
million  dollars — in  hell !" 

Should  church  property  be  taxed  is  a  question.  All 
depends  upon  the  use  these  properties  are  as  public 
institutions.  If  tithes  go  into  our  public  treasuries  for 
public  use  then  there  is  good  reason  to  help  the  church 
members  on  the  equitable  plans  for  taxation.  Take 
off  taxes  on  houses  of  God,  when  taxation  for  the 
public  use  is  not  called  charities,  missions  to  foreign 
lands,  etc.,  but  for  "our  own  use." 

Edisonally  speaking,  dear  reader,  did  it  ever  occur 
to  thee  that  the  story  of  Jesus,  Levite  and  Robber, 
might  hint  that  these  could  be  partners?  One  a  lure 
for  the  other?  Positive  and  negative  as  electricity  in 
dark  cloud,  may  not  have  active  contact.  Theology, 
with  its  purgatory,  heaven  and  hell,  is  not  teaching 
anything  to  the  righteous  other  than  heaven  is  our 
home — of  a  vast  camp-meeting  order.  I  would  enlarge 
the  place  of  joy  at  the  home,  to  complete  a  circuit  of 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  117 

life — the  here  attuned  to  the  hereafter;  from  death, 
to  rebirth ;  to  death  again. 

A  few  years  ago  in  Europe  the  evil  traits  in  man- 
kind became  such  that  thievery  and  other  deviltries 
were  punished  by  sentence  of  death.  Cruel,  some  may 
say,  but  it  was  a  question  of  life  in  peace.  The  honey- 
producers,  by  destroying  useless  bees,  the  female 
working  bee  finding  insufficient  food  could  be  gath- 
ered for  the  hive,  determined  on  thus  destroying 
drones. 

In  sublime  poem,  Milton  depicts  Lucifer,  like  a  mis- 
chief-maker, who  started  rebellion  in  heaven  and  was 
sent  flying  earthward  bethought  him  of  good  busi- 
ness (for  him)  down  amongst  the  Adamites;  and 
straightforward  he  came  to  us.  Between  fights  and 
frolics  he  was  ever  after  in  his  glory  on  earth.  His 
two  weapons,  laziness  and  war,  did  the  business,  sure, 
for  us.  His  work  has  given  us  overloads  of  poverty. 
Paradise  Lost,  depicting  the  twin  evils,  is  followed  by 
this  poet's  Paradise  Regained.  Here  is  brought  for- 
ward the  Prince  of  Peace,  the  industrious  carpenter — 
who  builds  up,  as  Lucifer  tore  down.  Our  glorious 
American,  Lincoln,  finding  evil  fruits  of  slavery  every- 
where, keeping  up  the  idle-rich  at  home,  and  in  Europe 
and  elsewhere  a  breeder  of  aristocrats — rich  and  idle 
classes,  had  by  heroic  endeavor  to  put  down  the  war 
element  of  the  home  rebels,  and  their  co-workers  for 
slavery,  in  England  and  France.  Noblest  endeavor  of 
any  mortal  in  history.  A  writer  says : 

"Should  you  be  able  to  persuade  others  to  follow 
your  lead,  and  rank  all  work  by  its  usefulness  rather 
than  by  its  gentility,  you  would  accomplish  a  much 


118  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

needed  reform.  Gentility  is  the  most  worthless  pos- 
session in  the  world.  Thousands  have  starved  for  it, 
and  thousands  more  have  lived  cramped,  forlorn  lives 
because  they  worshipped  at  its  shrine/1 

In  all  the  years  of  my  observation  of  the  beavers 
and  their  ways  I  never  knew  of  them  being  caught 
short  on  their  winter's  feed,  unless  it  was  a  case  where 
the  ruthless  hand  of  man  brought  distress  on  them  by 
cutting  out  their  dams  or  destroying  their  houses  in 
mid-winter.  The  first  work  on  their  dams  usually 
commences  about  the  middle  of  September,  in  North 
Dakota.  They  first  go  to  the  dam  breasts  and  do  a 
little  repairing  with  mud  and  twigs,  after  which  they 
dredge  out  or  dig  any  canals  the  situation  of  the  hour 
would  warrant.  By  this  time  the  old  weather  prog- 
nosticators  had  cast  their  horoscope  for  signs  of  the 
coming  winter,  and  whatever  the  result,  action  fol- 
lowed. If  severe  cold  snaps  were  expected  early,  work 
on  the  dams  stopped  for  the  time  that  all  hands  could 
commence  cutting  down  and  draging  in  their  willow 
brush  and  tree-tops  before  ice  formed  in  their  water 
slides  which  would  bother  and  retard  them,  getting 
their  food  in  shape  for  winter  storage.  A  winter  with- 
out snow  in  the  fore  part  of  it,  means  water  exposed 
to  hard  freezing  weather,  and  as  a  consequence  thick 
ice  that  will  freeze  deep  down  in  the  beaver's  feed  bed 
and  give  them  much  trouble  the  balance  of  the  winter, 
if  the  same  cannot  be  avoided.  This  is  the  reason  that 
from  warnings  of  a  snowless  winter  the  beavers  raise 
the  breasts  of  their  dams  from  one  to  two  feet  higher 
than  in  winters  that  they  expect  a  heavy  snowfall  in 
the  earlier  part.  Long  cold  winters  can  be  forecasted 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  119 

by  an  intelligent  observer  of  beavers'  ways  by  noting 
an  extra  large  feed  bed  and  the  extreme  care  that  they 
use  in  replastering  their  houses ;  the  work  on  the  latter 
being  usually  completed  by  the  first  days  of  October." 

The  above  quotation  from  Joseph  H.  Taylor's  book 
on  The  Beaver  indicates  how  the  white  man — with  civ- 
ilization— ruins  any  fair  realm.  Killing  inhabitants, 
not  only  red  brethren  but  wild  animals  ruthlessly. 
In  destroying  beavers  alone,  large  tracts  along  our 
streams  were  deprived  of  moisture,  made  desert.  Kill- 
ings have  robbed  our  native  wilds  of  countless  crea- 
tures that  in  former  times  had  the  forests,  now  de- 
stroyed, to  live  thereunder  in  all  peace  and  security. 

We  have  neither  to  curse  our  gods  nor  to  praise 
them;  neither  to  do  penance  nor  to  offer  burnt  offer- 
ings (food  for  priests),  but  only  to  take  and  use  wisely 
the  gifts  bestowed  upon  us. 

There  are  neither  skeptics  nor  atheists  in  regard  to 
nature  and  the  true  God.  He  can  exist  in  the  higher 
place  and  can  never  be  changed.  God  is  as  many- 
sided  as  nature  is.  The  savage  and  merciless  aspects 
of  nature  are  of  Him  also — in  the  jungles  of  Africa 
as  well  as  in  the  walks  of  culture  and  refinement;  in 
the  destroying  tornado  as  well  as  in  the  gentle  summer 
breeze;  in  the  overwhelming  floods  as  well  as  in  the 
morning  dews,  says  John  Burroughs. 

Dogs  of  war,  conquerors,  are  first  in  war,  last  in 
peace.  Next  to  this  very  evil  element  come  distress- 
ful millions  of  their  victims,  and  hordes  of  profiteers. 
Money  as  exchange  symbol  is  not  evil,  assuredly;  but 
when  the  rogues  and  idle  rich  get  hands  on  it,  then  it 
is  linked  with  evil  and  can  do  no  good.  Idleness  is 


120  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

an  accursed  evil — has  no  place  in  nature.  We  see  mo- 
tion everywhere — in  the  heavens  and  every  portion  of 
animated  being.  Honey  bees  will  take  the  lives  of 
their  drones  (males)  when  scarcity  of  food  is  theart- 
ened  on  years  flowers  are  scarce. 

Exclusively  blessed  ones,  biblical  to  the  core,  are 
now,  they  say,  near  the  era  of  the  Second  Coming  of 
Jesus;  or  they  to  meet  him  above  with  their  robes  on. 
They  never  die!  "Remnant, — true  believers  now  liv- 
ing/' says  our  local  publication,  Messiah's  Coming 
Kingdom,  "should  first  go  through  the  shadow  of  His 
death,  burial  and  then  the  reality.  We  should  be  sown 
or  buried,  a  natural  body,  and  then  be  raised  a  spir- 
itual body.  But  provision  is  also  made  for  a  company 
in  the  last  days  of  the  dispensation  who  are  not  to 
pass  through  the  grave,  but  are  to  be  changed.  We 
undoubtedly  are  living  in  that  time,  and  no  true  be- 
liever should  think  of  death  or  the  grave,  but  strive 
to  be  among  the  overcomers.  Some  have  honestly 
taken  the  stand  that  if  all  believers  during  the  gospel 
age  had  been  sufficiently  strong  in  faith  they  might 
have  escaped  the  grave  and  been  with  us  today.  After 
this  the  Son  of  man  is  revealed  sitting  upon  a  white 
cloud,  and  forthwith  the  harvest  of  the  earth,  or  gen- 
eral ingathering  of  surviving  Christians,  is  reaped  by 
him.  As  soon  as  the  144,000  sealed  ones  are  securely 
caught  up  to  Mount  Zion,  the  city  of  the  living  God, 
the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  straightway  there  goes  forth 
an  angel,  representing  a  body  of  preachers  and  jour- 
neys through  the  midst  of  heaven  with  the  everlasting 
gospel.  The  immediate  and  final  sequel  is  the  treading 
of  the  winepress  at  the  battle  of  Armageddon,  when 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  121 

the  incorrigible  are  crushed  in  the  vintage  of  God's 
wrath.  Thus  terminates  the  description  of  the  five 
years  of  the  second  advent  of  Christ,  including  the 
translation  of  the  first-fruits-Christians  at  its  begin- 
ning, and  of  the  harvest-Christians  at  its  close.  God's 
word  plainly  states  that  a  woman  must  not  be  "al- 
lowed to  teach  or  usurp  authority/'  We  know  of  no 
better  way  for  preachers  to  use  their  tithing  money 
than  in  literature  bringing  light  and  truth.  The  Lord 
will  touch  your  heart  to  give,  but  you  must  do  the 
giving.  The  finances  of  the  editor  are  very  meager." 
This  is  not  different  from  condition  of  other  poor 
editors  than  Brother  Miller.  But  why  be  concerned 
about  money  at  so  terrible,  so  prophetic,  so  pathetic  a 
time  of  catastrophe! 

Before  Lincoln  reached  his  acme  of  achievement, 
we  heard  he  was  too  common  to  be  great,  and  looked 
like  a  baboon.  Socrates,  greatest  of  the  Grecians,  was 
a  "corrupter  of  youth"  through  his  queer  doctrines, 
for  his  judges  were  found,  to  condemn  him  to  death 
by  poison.  Omar  Khayyam  was  called  a  drunken 
loafer,  an  infidel.  Even  Jesus  was  scoffed  at  as  a  hobo, 
mere  carpenter  in  Nazareth — especially  was  he  an  in- 
fidel deserving  all  the  agonies  of  slow  torture  on  the 
cross. 

We  hear  all  kinds  of  complaints  as  did  Job,  of 
trebles  and  vexations  in  living — the  chief  villain  (as 
playgoers  say)  was  Maker  and  Moving  Cause  of  all 
life's  activities.  Job  trusted  things  would  move  bet- 
ter by-and-by.  A  beneficent  One  sends  to  earthly 
existence  once  and  oftener  as  to  a  house  furnished: 
here  in  Los  Angeles  if  the  human  animal  is  dissatis- 


122  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

fied,  dirty,  negligent,  and  howling  about  better  treat- 
ment, he  must  move  or  pay  rent  and  "no  children  per- 
mitted." 

Human  nature  in  the  days  of  Jesus  was  much  the 
same  as  today.  We  have  missions  abroad  and  pulpits 
filled,  by  those  of  the  Levite  order ;  we  have  true  re- 
formers doing  work  without  money  and  cheerfully 
doing  their  best.  Jesus  scornfully  points  to  the  Levite 
as  passing  on  the  other  side — of  trouble,  of  serious 
calls  to  help  a  brother.  How  will  it  be  possible  to 
build  up  the  old  aristocratical  institutions,  by  aristo- 
crats themselves,  the  help !  help !  yelpers.  They  follow 
advice  of  the  poet,  "Donst  thou  marry  for  money,  but 
go  ivhere  money  is." 

Evolution  is  a  fact,  as  we  see  in  growth  everywhere. 
Not  only  do  the  creatures  of  earth  change,  but  the 
earth  itself  ages.  Single  lifetimes  are  mysterious,  for 
many  small  things  among  those  living  about  us  have 
their  tadpole-frog  or  earlier  changes  of  form.  The 
bee  has  progressed  so  far  as  to  control  progeny — the 
atrophied  female  can  be  seen  destroying  males  of  the 
hives, — one  pair  (sex)  doing  the  office  of  hundreds  of 
individuals.  The  worst  enemies  we  have  among 
worms  and  the  like,  are  those  underground  breeders, 
coming  up  at  stated  intervals  like  our  seventeen-year 
locusts  and  the  army  worm,  that  in  their  last  of  trans- 
formations to  the  perfect  state  will  overrun  acres  and 
destroy  every  bit  of  the  vegetation.  Farmers  may  get 
control  of  this  over-breeding  mania  when  his  own  kind 
require  no  more  divorcing.  In  old  time  the  greater 
the  power  a  chief  or  holy  man  had,  the  more  were  his 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  123 

"concubines/'  Thanks  to  increase  in  education  the 
chief  can  no  longer  control  the  woman. 

It  will  bear  examination,  the  statement  that  convicts 
have  sharper — more  cunning — intelligence  than  the 
general  population,  but  lack  much  of  pity.  You  find 
in  little  depredators  as  mice  (and  not  their  fault)  in- 
telligence suited  to  their  size,  as  that  governing  hu- 
man crooks,  the  latter  in  polarization  all  wrong.  Make 
better  traps  to  catch  the  big  ones.  It  does  not  make 
for  hardening  of  youth  to  great  extent,  catching  the 
"innocent"  lice  and  mice.  It  will  not  likely  make  us 
less  in  innocence,  destroying  humans  possessed  of  bad 
instincts,  than  to  be  carefully  eliminated,  for  these 
negative  ones  only  live  to  study  how  to  "get  you"  who 
are  on  the  side  of  innocence. 

There  was  a  recent  case  of  a  citizen  "being  born 
again"  after  eight  years  of  silence  as  in  a  grave.  A 
Denver  mute — dumb,  blind  and  paralyzed  in  every 
limb,  so  helpless  that  it  was  necessary  to  feed  him  by 
means  of  a  tube  through  his  nostrils,  unable  to  feel, 
smell  or  taste  or  even  to  think,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses unconscious,  Luther  Dionne  was  carried  into  the 
county  hospital.  Now  he  can  point  out  the  town  of 
his  birth,  and  with  a  pencil  he  can  print,  laboriously, 
the  name  of  the  village. 

"Would'st  thou  the  young  year's  blossoms  and  the  fruits  of  its 

decline, 

And  all  by  which  the  soul  is  charmed,  enraptured,  feasted,  fed, 
Would'st  thou  the  Earth  and  Heaven  itself  in  one  sole  name 

combine  ? 
I  name  thee,  O  Sakuntala!  and  all  at  once  is  said." 

— Goethe. 

Main  purposes  in  this  book  will  be  to  promote  joys 
of  home,  and  of  peace.  These  are  surely  more  in  the 


124  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

way  of  hope  and  sure  expectancy  than  is  a  heaven  in 
belief  only.  The  physical  love  of  life  here,  are  our 
vital  purposes  always.  From  Henry  IV  in  Shake- 
speare, I  copy,  the  dramatist  glorying  at  end  of  a  war  : 

I  like  them  all,  and  do  allow  them  well, 

And  swear  here  by  the  honor  of  my  blood, 

My  Father's  purposes  have  been  mistook; 

And  some  about  them  have  too  lavishly 

Wrested  His  meaning  and  authority. 

My  lord,  these  griefs  shall  be  with  speed  redressed; 

Upon  my  soul  they  shall.    If  this  may  please  you, 

Discharge  your  powers  into  their  several  counties, 

As  we  shall  ours,  and  here  between  the  armies, 

Let's  drink  together  friendly  and  embrace, 

That  all  their  eyes  may  bear  these  tokens  Home 

Of  our  restored  Love  and  unity 

The  word  of  Peace  is  rendered, — hark  how  they  shout ! 
A  Peace  is  of  the  nature  of  a  conquest — 
For  then  both  parties  nobly  are  subdued 
And  neither  party  loses ! 

The  human  family  seems  never  satisfied  with  earth, 
being  of  such  covetous  nature.  Self-preservation — 
hustle — influenced  our  races  from  very  earliest  times. 
Man  wants  to  go  faster,  imitating  spirit,  that  travels, 
Plato  says,  from  Here  to  There  without  lapse  of  time, 
or  any  pain.  When  airplane  or  under-sea  crafts  tire 
him,  he  will  seek  further  knowledge  of  the  earth's  in- 
terior, or  further,  seeking  universal  schemes  toward  a 
heaven!  But  "heaven"  is  within  him.  How  pitying 
he  is  "to  the  man  sitting  in  darkness" ;  some  other  sort 
of  civilization,  or  medicine,  he  must  take.  We  get 
farther  away  from  health  and  undefiled  religion  every 
century  ,and  when  innocent,  childlike  nations  are  used 
up— -how  we  all  will  be  as  like  as  two  peas ! 

Prescott's  Conquest  of  Peru  relates :  The  Spanish 
were  nearly  mad  with  joy  at  receiving  these  brilliant 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  125 

tidings  of  the  Peruvian  city.  All  their  fond  dreams 
were  now  to  be  realized,  and  they  had  at  length  reached 
the  realm  which  had  so  long  flitted  in  visionary  splen- 
dor before  them.  .  .  .  "It  was  manifestly  the  work 
of  heaven/'  exclaims  a  devout  son  of  the  church,  "that 
the  natives  of  the  country  should  have  received  him  in 
so  kind  and  loving  a  spirit,  as  best  fitted  to  facilitate 
the  conquest ;  for  it  was  the  Lord's  hand  which  led  him 
and  his  followers  to  this  remote  region  for  the  exten- 
sion of  the  holy  faith,  and  for  the  salvation  of  souls, 
.  .  .  .  Having  now  collected  all  the  information 
essential  to  his  object,  Pizarro,  after  taking  leave  of 
the  natives  of  Tumbez,  and  promising  a  speedy  return, 
weighed  anchor  and  again  turned  his  prow  towards  the 
south.  Still  keeping  as  near  as  possible  to  the  coast, 
that  no  place  of  importance  might  escape  his  observa- 
tion, he  passed  CapeBlanco,  and,  after  sailing  about  a 
degree  and  a  half,  made  the  port  of  Payta.  The  in- 
habitants, who  had  notice  of  his  approach,  came  out  in 
their  balsas  to  get  sight  of  the  wonderful  strangers, 
bringing  with  them  stores  of  fruits,  fish  and  vegeta- 
bles, with  the  same  hospitable  spirit  shown  by  their 
countrymen  of  Tumbez. 

Repeatedly  they  saw  structures  of  stone  and  plaster, 
and  occasionally  showing  architectural  skill  in  the  exe- 
cution, if  not  elegance  of  design.  Wherever  they  cast 
anchor  they  beheld  green  patches  of  cultivated  country 
redeemed  from  the  sterility  of  nature,  and  blooming 
with  the  variegated  vegetation  of  the  tropics ;  while  a 
refined  system  of  irrigation,  by  means  of  aqueducts 
and  canals,  seemed  to  be  spread  like  a  network  over 
the  surface  of  the  country,  making  even  the  desert  to 


126  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

blossom  as  the  rose.  .  .  .  On  his  way,  he  touched 
at  several  places  where  he  had  before  landed.  At  one 
of  these,  called  by  Spaniards  Santa  Cruz,  he  had  been 
invited  on  shore  by  an  Indian  woman  of  rank.  .  .  . 
Pizarro  found  that  preparations  had  been  made  for  his 
reception  in  a  style  of  simple  hospitality  that  evinced 
some  degree  of  taste.  Arbors  were  formed  of  luxuri- 
ant and  widespreading  branches,  interwoven  with 
fragrant  flowers  and  shrubs  that  diffused  a  delicious 
perfume  through  the  air.  A  banquet  was  provided, 
teeming  with  viands  prepared  in  the  style  of  the  Peru- 
vian cookery,  and  with  fruits  and  vegetables  of  tempt- 
ing hue  and  luscious  to  the  taste,  though  their  names 
and  nature  were  unknown  to  the  Spaniards.  After 
the  collation  was  ended,  the  guests  were  entertained 
with  music  and  dancing  by  a  troop  of  young  men  and 
maidens  simply  attired,  who  exhibited  in  their  favorite 
national  amusement  all  the  agility  and  grace  which 
the  supple  limbs  of  the  Peruvian  Indians  so  well  quali- 
fied them  to  display.  Before  his  departure,  Pizarro 
stated  to  his  kind  host  the  motives  of  his  visit  to  the 
country,  in  the  same  manner  as  he  had  done  on  other 
occasions,  and  he  concluded  by  unfurling  the  royal 
banner  of  Castile,  which  he  had  brought  on  shore, 
requesting  her  and  her  attendants  to  raise  it  in  token  of 
their  allegiance  to  his  sovereign.  ...  He  took  with 
him  gold,  some  of  the  natives,  as  well  as  two  or  three 
llamas,  various  nice  fabrics  of  cloth,  with  many  orna- 
ments and  vases  of  gold  and  silver,  as  specimens  of  the 
civilization  of  the  country,  and  vouchers  for  his  won- 
derful story. " 

Has  Spain  received  glory  and  wealth  to  yet  endure 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  127 

the  inroads  of  time?  Eveti  at  our  time  of  greater 
civilization,  only  one  nation  (our  own),  has  published 
any  desire  to  quit  robbing  weaker  nations.  Still 
Pizarro  methods  predominate! 

Our  American  poet,  Whitman,  personifying  the 
Soul  says: 

"O,  vapors!  I  think  I  have  risen  with  you,  and 
moved  away  to  distant  continents  and  fallen  down 
there,  for  reason ;  I  think  I  have  blown  with  you,  O, 
winds!  O,  waters,  I  have  fingered  every  shore  with 
you.  All  forces  have  been  steadily  employed  to  com- 
plete and  delight  me.  Now  on  this  spot  I  stand  with 
my  robust  soul,  etc.  Hands  of  the  sisters,  Death  and 
Night  , incessantly,  softly  wash  again  and  ever  again 
this  soiled  world/' 

"When  once/'  Bacon  says,  "the  mind  has  placed  be- 
fore it  noble  aims,  it  is  immediately  surrounded — not 
only  by  the  virtuous,  but  by  the  gods/'  This  is  evo- 
lution. 

Jesus  says,  "To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given." 

Plato  affirms  that  "the  soul  is  wholly  immortal,  and 
when  it  is  removed  from  this  spot,  it  is  there  without 
pain;  so  it  must  needs  be,  Axiochus,  if  you  have  lived 
piously,  you  will  be  happy  either  below  or  above." 

Confucius  says,  "The  glory  and  tranquillity  of  a 
state  may  arise  from  the  excellence  of  one  man.  If  a 
man  love  others,  and  no  responsive  attachment  is 
shown  to  him,  let  him  turn  inwards  and  examine  his 
own  benevolence." 

"The  stern  behest  of  duty, 

The  doom-book  open  thrown, 
The  heaven  ye  seek,  the  hell  ye  fear, 
Are  within  ourselves  alone." 

—Whittier. 


128  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Franklin  H.  Heald  ,in  his  theory  of  the  procession 
of  planets,  has  reasoned  out  his  case  from  facts,  with- 
out any  tendency  to  mysticism. 

Early  Hebrews  believed  in  their  Burning  Bush,  and 
in  ancient  times  idol  worship  and  ghost-seeing  indi- 
cated there  was  evidence  of  this  unknown  force  of 
light.  Shakespeare  in  his  great  tragedy,  "Macbeth," 
gave  this  unexplained  something  both  the  knocking 
power  (at  the  gate),  and  the  visions. 

Spectrum  analysis  shows  the  same  elements  as  our 
sun,  for  the  earth  and  all  other  bodies.  A  more  search- 
ing knowledge  will  some  day  follow  on  the  spiritual 
side  of  light. 

The  war  now  ended  will  give  us  a  new  era.  Prus- 
sianism  and  Priestcraft  must  go!  and  then  the  lowly 
Jesus,  the  leveler  of  old,  will  come  into  His  own.  De- 
spised, forsaken,  crucified,  this  representative  of  re- 
publicanism moved  among  the  publicans  and  others, 
His  true  mission  never  wholly  revealed,  even  when 
the  new  religion  had  later  sprung  up  to  do  Him  pious 
honor.  His  fabled  Samaritans,  Levites  and  Magda- 
lenes  will  now  be  better  interpreted.  Woman  is  free 
now  to  live,  and  no  longer  must  be  slavish  burden 
bearer  or  bearer  of  children, — as  her  only  "spheres." 

Our  palaces  of  kings  and  houses  of  God  or  gods 
will  be  turned  to  better  use,  to  poor  houses,  maybe,  so 
that  the  halt  and  blind  and  poor  will  have  veritable 
refuges  at  last.  Every  human  being  must,  as  Bunyan 
said  of  the  tub,  "stand  on  its  own  bottom."  Church 
and  state  tyrannies  must  go.  Less  than  300  years  ago 
John  Bunyan  in  Merry  England  was  kept  13  years 
in  Bedford  jail  for  preaching  in  a  private  residence; 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  129 

indicted  as  "a  person  who  devilishly  and  perniciously 
abstained  from  coming  to  church/'  And  he  the 
author  of  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  other  pious  and  ever- 
popular  books ! 

George  Fox  of  the  same  period  and  region  as  Bun- 
yan,  for  preaching  the  gospel,  was  seized — by  law — 
and  robbed  of  his  goods,  and  often  sent  to  noisome 
jails.  His  followers  in  the  Society  of  Friends,  to  the 
number  of  hundreds,  were  ruthlessly  mobbed,  jailed, 
or  murdered. 

Shakespeare's  "Seven  Ages  of  Man"  would  indi- 
cate our  earthly  personal  evolutions,  almost  as  marked, 
one  from  the  other,  as  the  final  one  here,  the  Great 
Adventure. 

As  sunlight  may  carry  all  the  materials  to  make  up 
worlds,  why  should  not  "Light  that  never  was  on  sea 
nor  shore"  carry  souls, — life ; — and  cannot  this  better 
part  of  all  animate  creation,  after  rest  at  the  center, 
go  again  into  motion  beyond, — attracted  by  the  loved 
souls  gone  before;  or,  to  go  again  into  outer  realms? 
The  new-born  babe  holds  forth  the  hands  to  grasp  the 
beloved  one, — so  we  should  approach  the  finite  or  in- 
finite, our  best  beloved. 

"Lead,  kindly  Light,"  that  lighteth  everyone  upon  the 
earth.  The  Guide  will  not  turn  from  Light  to  Dark- 
ness in  either  direction  making  the  procession — the 
evolution.  George  Fox,  in  his  homely  phrase,  said, 
"Mind  the  Light !"  Another  meaning  than  the  one  he 
intends,  we  may  indicate  here:  Mind  is  the  channel 
of  all  reunion,  Finite  with  Infinite. 

You  can  always  discern  the  difference  between  a 
"miracle"  worker  and  the  true  minister  of  Jesus,  for 


130  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

the  former  makes  ready  advances  to  get  your  money, 
and  the  latter  is  true  to  his  teacher  in  the  spirit  will 
"render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  honestly  Cae- 
sar's, and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  His." 

"A  servant  is  worthy  of  his  hire,"  says  the  trickster. 
As  no  man  "can  find  out  God,"  no  man  can  be  hon- 
estly hired  by  Him.  Work  ye  for  the  well-being  of  all 
in  Life — do  it  in  the  spirit  of  love  and  compassion. 

This  auto,  aero,  and  movie  generation  has  much 
more  of  frivolity  than  had  that  generation  before  it. 
In  1653  George  Fox  of  England  devised  a  very  sim- 
ple but  solemn  marriage  ceremony.  After  a  young 
couple  had  attended  his  (Quaker,  and  very  solemn) 
meetings  and  announced  there  their  intentions  of  mar- 
riage, at  last  came  the  meeting  place  ceremony,  with 
a  personage  of  the  law  present  as  recorder.  They, 
standing  before  the  assembled  Friends,  say,  as  Richard 
Roe,  who,  taking  Mary  Doe  by  the  hand,  said :  "In 
presence  of  our  friends  assembled,  I  take  to  be  my 
wedded  wife — promising,  with  Divine  assistance,  to  be 
unto  her  a  loving  and  faithful  husband,  until  death 
shall  separate  us."  Then  the  woman  (with  only  "hus- 
band" omitted,  and  "wife"  inserted),  repeats  the 
promise. 

This  is  a  very  practical  age,  in  a  well-governed  re- 
public. Before  the  Jewish  nation  succumbed  2000 
years  ago,  poverty  was  general,  for,  after  paying 
the  tithes,  10  per  cent,  on  incomes,  the  people  must 
raise  taxes  for  government  purposes.  The  tithe  went 
to  autocratic  religious  extortioners — hirelings  in  name 
only,  as  they  lived  in  great  comfort.  This  class  had, 
before  they  killed  Jesus,  to  bear  much  ridicule  and 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  131 

some  violence  from  Him,  the  free  prophet,  or  "out- 
law." As  the  Bible  says,  Jesus  scourged  them,  and 
His  way  of  treating  "the  Levite  priest"  is  of  record. 
God-hirelings,  so-called,  are  today  our  citizens  with- 
out regular  employment.  The  citizens  assist  them, 
aside  from  the  exaction  of  ten  per  cent,  in  money 
raised  by  tithes  from  parishioners  for  them  to  use. 
If  they  go  abroad  to  the  "men  sitting  in  darkness," 
they  are,  on  return  here,  well  healed,  yet  helpless  in 
regard  to  public  duties.  As  our  poor  need  assistance, 
this  class  of  the  community  should  be  publicly  en- 
rolled and  be  made  to  work.  They  were  of  public 
school  education  (also  theological  schools  or  Bible  in- 
stitutes), so  could  be  of  great  help  to  the  public. 
Mothers  everywhere  are  overburdened  by  care  and 
work,  so  why  not  turn  all  agents  of  God,  so-called, 
into  By-the-Sweat-of-the-Brow  class?  I  have  a  niece, 
a  doctor  with  Presbyterian  missions  in  Arabia,  and  the 
wealthy  sheik  of  the  region  encourages  her  in  different 
ways — imploring  her  to  help  his  downtrodden  people 
— but  asks  her  to  be  among  them  not  as  a  missionary. 

Authority  is  the  thing  to  scare  you  out  of  your 
boots,  be  you  ever  so  innocent  of  wrong-doing.  A  snip 
of  a  British  officer,  leading  his  crowd  of  armed  over- 
whelmers  near  Bunker  Hill,  got  his  soldiers  into  a  bad 
mix,  captured  by  our  Continentals.  Our  sturdy  Revo- 
lutionary general  was  being  browbeaten  by  the  haughty 
captive  chief,  who  roared  out,  "By  what  authority?" 
The  answer  of  our  patriotic  general  was  "By  authority 
of  the  Great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental  Congress." 
This  is  the  best,  the  most  pat,  and  enduring  answer  to 
aristocracy  that  could  be  made.  It  was  good  before 


132  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

the  days  of  Putnam;  it  is  good  today.  The  same 
blatant  cry  of  authority,  religious,  strength  of  arm,  or 
trickery,  can  turn  up  the  rottenest  element  to  rest  on 
the  surface  of  affairs — with  stench,  with  abuse,  with 
money  (or  God's  authority  (!)  no  one  with  intelli- 
gence would  obey. 

The  insolence  was  crowded  back  in  our  Revolution, 
and  today  we  hope  will  be  alike  successful  whenever 
an  unauthorized  (by  the  people)  set  of  rulers  attempt 
government.  The  like  fate  will  be  meted  out  to  science 
or  religions  attempting  to  override  the  common  sense 
of  a  common  people. 

It  appears  from  tradition  Jesus  was  a  fighter  for  the 
right,  as  shown  in  a  fight  He  had  with  money  changers 
in  the  temple.  Today  we  have  perplexities  in  belief, 
yet  with  education  and  science  now,  the  mystery  busi- 
ness (miracles,  etc.),  mildly  turn  to  movies,  acrobats 
in  the  air  springing  securely  across  voids  from  one  air- 
plane to  another;  and  the  ouiji  board  that  crazes  many 
who  are  looking  for  some  hokus  pokus  from  spirits. 
All  have  trace  of  a  brain  weakness  that  comes  from 
use,  generation  after  generation,  of  rum,  tobacco  or 
opium  mostly.  Systems  are  also  weakened  physically 
from  private  diseases  and  poisons.  Paradise  Lost 
might  be  rewritten,  and  as  Quaker  Thomas  Elwood 
suggested  to  his  friend  John  Milton  once,  "Thee 
should  tell  us  of  a  paradise  found."  If  Jesus  by  re- 
birth comes  to  earth,  as  religionists  oft  aver  He  will, 
we  may  expect  a  still  more  elevated  poem  than  that  of 
blind  Milton. 

We  begin  to  learn  of  true  mysteries  of  sky  and  plan- 
ets, and  suns ;  and  when  more  writers  can  follow  John 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  133 

Burroughs  in  telling  us  of  the  real  life  of  bird  or  ani- 
mal, the  earth  should  attract  all  attention,  long  diverted 
to  a  heaven  of  the  Loheres.  Then  will  we  have  a  tith- 
ing for  human  knowledge  not  yet  attained,  that  is  far 
above  gold  and  rubies.  Then,  possibly,  will  be  seen 
spirits  (I  think  not),  in  nature  aside  from  all  the  crea- 
tures returning  here  by  a  rebirth.  The  grandeurs  and 
endless  variety  in  nature  here  is  surely  above  any  con- 
ceptions of  a  golden,  trumpeting,  hallelujah  resting 
place  for  spirits — only  spirit;  unseen  forms.  (No 
trumpets,  no  mouth  to  sing.)  'The  kingdom  of  God 
is  within  you/'  was  a  fitting  expression  of  Jesus,  when 
we  can  keep  thoughts  above  any  concepts  of  kings, 
priests,  or  any  pleasures  of  society,  past  or  present. 
We  are  not  longer  worshipping  mere  idols  of  dead 
men  in  this  age  of  equal  rights,  equal  privileges,  caring 
not  what  any  boss  may  think  about  this  and  that. 

Venerate  the  Scriptures,  in  the  saying,  "If  we  go  to 
the  uttermost  ends  of  the  earth,"  there  is  the  God  of 
law  and  order.  (In  the  old  times,  possibly,  the  earth 
had  ends,  but  now  it  is  round  as  a  ball.)  "How  can 
we  sing  the  songs  of  Zion  in  a  strange  land?"  Thou 
needst  not,  for  in  thy  everlasting  garb  of  the  spirit, 
there  is  no  strange  land.  "I  sent  my  soul  into  the  in- 
visible, the  after-life,  to  tell;  and  it  returned  to  me 
and  said,  Thou,  thyself,  art  heaven  and  hell."  God  is 
everywhere.  Why  wish  to  meet  Him  in  bliss  (heaven) 
if  thou  wilt  live  in  peace  and  happiness? 

As  a  soldier,  going  over  the  top  with  an  unloaded 
gun,  would  mean  want  of  discretion  or  wilfulness,  so 
you  must  in  this  world  have  a  trained  will.  If  you 
take  to  flight  in  an  airplane,  and  have  the  ocean  or 


134  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

mountain  to  cross,  then  you  find  a  trained  will  essen- 
tial. 

If  a  young  person  of  either  sex  contemplates  mar- 
riage, then  an  age  of  selfishness — ice  cream  and  candy 
era — must  be  abated.  This  most  essential  period 
reached,  selfishness  must  be  thrown  out  of  your  then 
high  flights  of  fancy.  The  pilot  of  an  airplane  would 
not  need  a  better  trained  will  than  yours  should  be  to 
steer  you  on  a  true  course.  Lay  low,  and  think !  Call 
up  a  trained  will  power  to  command  or  to  your  need. 
You  will  truly  seek  then  that  power  within — the  in- 
stinct guiding  all  animal  life.  For  if  the  mate,  chosen 
with  a  care  the  bird  shows  in  preparation  for  nesting, 
has  met  the  crisis  with  like  care,  you  can  go  ahead 
knowing  all  is  well. 

Man's  a  little  chunk  of  ice ; 

Woman  is  the  Sun ;  she  lets 
Herself  beam  on  him.     How  nice 

And  soft  he  gets ! 

A  person  who  loves  ease,  and  yet  counts  upon  a  re- 
birth that  will  still  keep  him  among  the  slothful  high- 
ups,  will  be  much  surprised,  maybe,  to  find  that  his 
soul  has,  like  the  ass's  skin  in  the  story,  grown  in- 
finitesimally  small,  to  be  brought  again  into  reincarna- 
tion amidst  his  equals,  the  sloths  or  monkeys.  What  a 
hullabaloo  was  raised  when  Huxley  and  others  proved 
that  man  and  monkey  have  the  precise  skeleton  in 
every  bone ! 

We  had  returned  to  us  of  earth,  a  century  ago,  when 
our  republic  was  endangered,  such  grand  men  as  Lin- 
coln and  Grant,  just  in  the  nick  of  time  as  the  saying 
is.  While  great  souls  are  sent  as  needed  to  rebirth, 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  135 

the  lower  world  of  wild  creatures  will  have  souls  also 
sent.  Those  humans  bfore  tried  and  found  wanting, 
possibly,  will  appear  in  families  of  monkeys  or  sloths. 
The  devil  takes  the  hindermost,  is  a  common  saying. 

Related  to  immortality  seems  that  almost  invisible 
element  protozoa.  After  its  host's  death  this  continues 
its  life,  almost  formless,  in  the  dead  body.  Cycle  of 
life  at  first  passes  six  stages  from  fertilization  until 
leaving  the  egg  form.  Oxygen  seems  of  primal  use, 
as  use  of  ai  ris  our  last  hold  or  want  of  hold  upon  life. 

It  is  crass  conceit  to  say  you  know  the  world,  for 
throughout  countless  lives  of  creatures  you  cannot 
even  see  so  many  of  microscopic  smallness.  You  only 
see  a  few  of  the  larger  forms  in  all  the  kingdoms  of 
nature.  Thus  you  can  pass  away  from  earth,  and 
again  return  to  the  first  stage,  ovum,  the  spirit  return- 
ing rejuvenated  after  death  (soul  sleep)  to  again  reach 
the  middle  of  life's  stage. 

Ignoring  the  opposite  pull  of  polarity  might  destroy 
hell.  As  well  try  to  write  hot  and  cold  into  a  com- 
promise unit.  When  a  Higher  Light  illumines,  there 
comes  the  Christ  spirit,  and  later  our  Elder  Brother, 
Jesus.  The  age  we  live  in  is  not  Christian,  if  that 
means  being  on  the  side  of  right  to  any  great  extent. 

Evolutions  have  brought  us  out  of  savagery;  they 
will  lead  us  to  God  (good).  Jesus  gives  no  account 
of  heaven,  no  assurance  of  our  fitness  for  it,  only  of 
home  concept. 

A  Quaker  poet,  Whittier,  whose  ancestors  were  so 
maltreated  for  heresy  in  the  Puritan  days,  is  now  ac- 
counted a  Christian  guide  and  an  honored  hymn- 
writer,  all  denominations  honoring  him.  Another  be- 


136  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

liever  in  voices,  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  was  burned  at 
the  stake  as  an  infidel  at  behest  of  a  bishop,  who, 
Judas-like,  betrayed  the  savior  of  France  to  her  Eng- 
lish foes.  Puritan  cruelties  exercised  against  old 
women  martyrs — so-called  witches — show  a  big  blot 
in  our  history.  And  but  for  educated  thinkers  we 
would  yet  have  a  dark  age — kaisers  thirsting  for  plun- 
der and  power,  and  fanatics  stirring  up  all  kinds  of 
disorders. 

Let  us  follow  the  teachings  of  Jesus  and  other  com- 
passionate democrats.  There  is  a  general  belief  in 
churches  that  the  Comforter  will  again  be  reborn  on 
earth,  so  that  I  may  presume  to  say  the  theory  of  re- 
birth, as  old  as  sun-worship,  maybe,  will  bear  in  time 
good  fruit. 

THE  OPEN  ROAD 

BY  C.  B.  DODGE 

The  open  road  lies  out  to  the  hills, 
Where  the  cares  will  find  you  not; 

Each  turn  of  road  brings  a  vista  new 
Of  a  quiet  sylvan  spot. 

And  the  song  of  the  thrush  is  ringing, 

Oh,  a  wonder  song  thou  art ! 
And  a  solace  comes  in  the  woodland, 

And  quiet  steals  to  the  heart. 

Then  it's  leave  behind  the  noisy  town, 

Where  the  cares  and  worries  be, 
To  wander  far  o'er  the  open  road 

To  the  land  of  leaf  and  tree ! 

Oh,  world,  the  wealth  of  life  and  love 
Breathes  out  from  thy  primal  sod; 

The  open  road  lies  out  to  the  hills, 
And  that  highway  leads  to  God ! 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  137 

"It  is  not  easy  to  hear  and  apply  to  one's  self  the 
exhortations  of  preachers  who,  aloft  in  the  pulpit, 
seem  to  be  carrying  out  a  mere  formality;  it  is  just 
as  difficult  to  escape  from  the  appeals  of  a  layman 
who  walks  at  your  side/'  says  Sabbatier,  author  of 
the  Life  of  Saint  Francis.  The  latter  was  more  the 
recluse,  camper  in  the  woods,  than  preacher.  Deeds, 
not  words,  as  this  great  man  did  his  work  principally 
for  the  poor,  and  his  friends,  the  birds  and  other  lowly 
creatures. 

A  man  who  worries  over  his  own  soul  and  to  con- 
vert others,  as  did  the  fanatics  about  1212,  when  send- 
ing abroad  into  the  region  of  Jerusalem  defenseless 
children.  The  little  ones  were  ruthlessly  slain,  or 
taken  by  enemy  soldiers,  to  spend  the  rest  of  their  lives 
in  slavery,  and  homeless.  This  was  far  and  away 
from  the  religion  of  Jesus  the  compassionate.  In  Eng- 
land, likewise,  the  poor  were  neglected  and  downtrod- 
den by  worthless  priests  and  rulers,  until  a  friend  of 
the  poor,  Robin  Hood,  made  havoc  among  the  idle 
rich  churchmen. 

Jews,  Christians,  Mohammedans,  slaughtering  each 
other,  for  ages,  and  all  other  wars,  upon  unbelievers 
or  enemies,  must  cease,  or  compassion  such  as  Jesus 
taught  ,and  education  fosters,  must  go  to  the  discard 
and  we  go  back  to  savagery! 

Ovid,  the  Roman  poet,  speaking  of  Pythagoras  as 
his  interpreter,  says:  "Our  bodies,  too,  are  changing 
always,  and  without  any  intermission,  and  tomorrow 
we  shall  not  be  what  we  were  or  what  we  are  now. 
And,  believe  me,  in  this  universe  so  vast,  nothing  per- 
ishes; but  it  varies  and  changes  its  appearance,  and 


138  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

to  begin  to  be  something  different  from  what  it  was 
before,  is  called  being  born;  and  to  cease  to  be  the  same 
thing  is  to  be  said  to  die.  Whereas,  perhaps,  those 
things  are  transferred  hither,  and  these  things  thither, 
yet  ,in  the  whole,  all  things  ever  exist." 

As  Pythagoras  was  considered  to  have  pursued 
metaphysical  studies  more  deeply,  perhaps,  than  any 
other  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  Ovid  could  not  have 
introduced  a  personage  more  fitted  to  discuss  these 
subjects.  Having  traveled  through  Asia,  it  is  sup- 
posed that  Pythagoras  passed  into  Italy,  and  settled 
at  Crotona  ,to  promulgate  there  the  philosophical  prin- 
ciples which  he  had  acquired  in  his  travels  through 
Egypt  and  Asia  Minor. 

The  Pythagorean  philosophy  was  well  suited  for 
the  purpose  of  mingling  its  doctrines  with  the  fabulous 
narratives  of  the  poet,  as  it  consisted,  in  great  part, 
of  the  doctrine  of  an  endless  series  of  transformations, 
its  main  features  may  be  reduced  to  two  general 
heads,  the  first  of  which  was  the  doctrine  of  metam- 
psychosis,  or  continual  transmigration  of  souls  (as  in 
rebirth)  from  one  body  to  another.  Pythagoras  is 
supposed  not  to  have  originated  this  doctrine,  but  to 
have  received  it  from  the  Egyptians,  by  whose  priest- 
hood there  is  little  doubt  that  it  was  originated. 

A  native  of  India  says:  "We've  been  taught  for 
ages  after  ages,  and  centuries  after  centuries,  to  turn 
our  gaze  inzvard  toward  the  realms  that  are  not  those 
which  are  reached  by  the  help  of  the  physical  senses. 
Great  as  the  physical  body  may  be,  there  is  something 
greater  within  man,  underneath  the  universe  that  is 
to  be  longed  for  and  striven  after." 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  139 

Plutocratic  religions  must  give  way  for  democracy 
as  Jesus  taught  and  practiced.  The  cycle  of  matter 
and  that  higher  one  of  the  spirit,  admit  of  no  release 
from  law — here  and  hereafter.  No  agencies  for  God 
— to  excuse,  to  help,  to  exonerate.  The  little  verse  of 
Bishop  Doane  may  be  cited: 

The  parish  priest  of  Austerity 

Climbed  up  in  a  high  church  steeple 
To  be  nearer  God,  that  he  might 

Hand  down  His  word  unto  the  people. 

So  he  daily  wrote  in  sermon  script 
What  he  thought  was  sent  from  heaven, 

And  he  dropped  this  down  on  the  people's  heads 
Two  times  one  day  in  seven. 

In  his  age,  God  said,  "Come  down  and  die." 

And  he  cried  from  out  the  steeple: 
"Where  are  thou,  Lord?"  and  the  Lord  replied, 

"Down  here  among  my  people." 

The  human  mind,  as  shown  in  progress  of  inven- 
tions, has  no  recourse  but  from  imitation  of  nature. 
Our  minds  get  the  concepts  only  of  earth  (and  what 
the  light  within  prompts),  so  why  not  have  a  religion 
that  will  glorify  the  Original  of  all  earth's  glories? 
"This  is  a  sinful  world"  is  taught  by  priests,  yet  the 
Original  of  all  is  praised — the  revilers  of  His  works 
knowing  no  other  world !  There  are  billions  of  crea- 
tures and  numberless  plants,  unknown  to  us  "of  the 
home  plant,"  yet  some  may  be  intelligent  and  inclined 
to  see  and  appreciate  any  of  these:  this  is  religion  look- 
ing backwards,  and  not  seeing  the  all-absorbing  beau- 
ties of  the  present. 

Education  is  far  from  that  concept  of  reward  in  an- 
other world — a  heaven  of  bliss  and  praise  to  God. 


140  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Prof.  Sumner,  deceased,  of  Yale  University,  once  said : 

"The  higher  you  go  in  social  attainments,  the 
greater  will  be  the  restraints  upon  you.  The  gait,  the 
voice,  the  manner,  the  rough  independence  of  one  or- 
der of  men  is  unbecoming  in  another.  Education 
above  all  brings  this  responsibility.  Discipline  in  man- 
ners and  morals  does  not  belong  to  the  specific  matter 
of  education.  The  educated  man  must  work  by  him- 
self without  any  overseer  over  him.  He  finds  his  com- 
pulsion in  himself  and  it  holds  him  to  his  task  longer 
than  any  external  compulsion.  This  responsibility  to 
self  we  call  honor,  and  it  is  one  of  the  highest  fruits 
of  discipline  when  discipline,  having  wrought  through 
intellect,  has  reached  character. 

"It  is  well  that  we  should  remember  that  the  re- 
ligious life  looked  for  God  in  law  and  ritual,  in  the 
abnormal  and  unusual ;  but  for  Jesus,  as  for  every  man 
who  has  earnestly  sought  to  help  his  fellows,  the  ordi- 
nary and  commonplace  were  enough.  How  the  growth 
of  the  priest  and  the  progress  of  ecclesiasticism  all 
through  the  middle  ages,  overlaid  and  obscured  Jesus 
— his  spirit  and  His  teaching — and  the  'hungry  sheep 
looked  up  and  were  not  fed  P  How  slow  man  has  been 
in  learning  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  among  you, 
even  within  you,  in  the  common  people  of  whom  all 
other  teachers  have  declared  PJ 

Further,  says  this  writer: 

"The  Pharisee  in  his  tithing  of  'mint,  anis  and  cum- 
min/ in  laying  excessive  stress  on  the  trivialities  of  the 
law,  on  Sabbath  keeping,  on  tithes  and  temple  ritual, 
on  the  washing  of  pot  and  platter,  shut  himself  out 
of  all  sharing  in  the  fellowship  and  friendship  of 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  141 

Jesus,  for  he  utterly  missed  His  spirit.  In  all  that  he 
supposed  constituted  righteousness,  the  Spiritual  had 
no  part.  Absorbed  as  he  was  in  the  vexations  and 
pettiness  of  trivialities  he  was  but  playing  to  himself  a 
contemptible  comedy  of  holiness/' 

A  Night  of  the  Soul !  From  age  to  age  selfishness 
has  increased.  We  kill  all  harmless  birds  and  animals 
for  sport  only  ,or  for  food;  robberies  are  on  the  in- 
crease ;  even  children,  helplessly  aged  persons,  pets  and 
domestic  animals,  are  cruelly  treated.  Lambs  and 
monkey  calves  are  led  to  the  slaughter,  or  themselves 
are  starved  that  the  selfish  humankind  may  get  richer 
milk  and  cream.  Physical  nature  will  in  course  of 
events  become  rigid  and  cold  as  the  earth  loses  by  age 
— our  moon  already  presents  only  one  side  to  us.  So 
the  earth,  in  turn,  will  show  only  the  one  face  to  the 
sun,  later  to  be  swallowed  up  in  that  fiery  furnace. 
Meantime,  all  the  living  creatures  of  earth  will  die,  and 
be  reborn  on  some  globe  as  a  new  home,  probably  the 
next  planet  in  our  system  behind  the  earth  ,if  habitable. 
There  may  we  have  joys,  flowers  and  fruits,  in  fact,  a 
second  home  for  all ! 

This  is  of  a  greater  evolution,  indeed. 

We  are  learning  more  and  more  of  the  Spirit ;  hav- 
ing less  and  less  of  the  fear  of  death  —  that  is  no 
monster  at  all.  All  will  abide  under  and  trust  the 
Beneficent  Creator  at  last.  Death  and  birth  are  near 
alike. 

Half  the  congregations  of  so-called  worshippers 
may  have  a  certain  belief  in  Beneficent  Christ,  yet  so 
set  in  the  crooked  way  that  these  have  murder  in  their 
hearts  if  others  will  not  cringe  to  a  selfish  opinion. 


142  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Rows  upon  rows  the  graves  are  found  in  Slander's 
fields!  —  So  numerous  that  continuous  graveyards 
stretch  around  the  world,  and  then  not  hold  those 
killed  by  cruel  slanderers.  Yes,  in  Slander's  field ! 

Real  education  is  not  a  common  kind  of  culture, 
for  business,  war,  etc.  Matthew  Arnold,  in  the  Intro- 
duction of  his  essay,  "Sweetness  and  Light,  says :  'In 
one  of  his  speeches  a  short  time  ago,  that  fine  speaker 
and  famous  Liberal,  Mr.  Bright,  took  occasion  to  have 
a  fling  at  the  friends  and  preachers  of  culture.  Teople 
talk  about  what  they  call  culture,'  said  he  contemptu- 
ously, 'by  which  they  mean  a  smattering  of  the  two 
dead  languages,  of  Greek  and  Latin.'  It  is  well  for 
Americans  to  remember  that  the  cultured  Englishman, 
Mr.  Gladstone,  was  the  first  of  the  aristocrats  who  fa- 
vored in  Parliament  the  side  of  slavery  in  our  fight 
for  the  United  States  and  freedom  in  1861-5."  We 
want  no  such  culture.  It  was  just  such  autocrats  as 
Gladstone  who  financed  that  war  for  slavery,  yet  the 
scoundrels  failed  of  their  purpose  to  break  up  the 
United  States.  The  same  kultur  we  fought  against  in 
the  World's  War  later. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  universe  stationary — nothing 
void  of  HEAT.  Evolution  may  refer  to  life  as  we 
know  it.  Matter  cannot  be  "blessed"  into  animation  of 
soul,  nor  can  our  bodies  be  mummified  to  preserve  the 
mortal  likeness — preserve  from  changes  of  time. 

A  rose  she  was,  most  passing  fair, 
That  makes  more  sweet  the  summer  air 

For  one  day  only; 
A  solitary  cloud  at  noon, 
That,  melting  in  the  dome  of  June, 

Leaves  the  blue  lonely: 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  143 

A  bird  at  dawn  that  upward  flies 
And  falls  from  out  the  scarlet  skies 

Of  Eldorado; 

A  murmuring  shell  upon  the  shore 
Swirled  sudden  down  beneath  the  roar 

To  realms  of  shadow; 

A  sumptuous  moth,  in  autumn  hours, 
A-flutter  o'er  ephemeral  flowers 

In  vain  endeavor ; 
A  firefly  in  the  fields  of  even, 
That  lights  a  little  space  of  heaven, 

Then  fades  forever. 

— Lloyd  Mifflin. 

As  I  once  told  John  Burroughs,  my  opinion  was  that 
the  greatest,  unpleasantest  fall  of  man  was  when  he 
fell  from  the  trees,  then  in  his  arboreal  stage  of  nature. 
He  began  then  to  kill  and  eat  innocent  creatures  on 
the  earth,  descending  to  the  low  estate  of  a  carnivore 
or  buzzard.  Keep  going,  going — so  you  get  some- 
where. 

A  chance  for  home  gives  the  weakest  (or  wickedest) 
criminal  some  cheer,  of  the  dreamy  kind.  Out  of  the 
depths,  cries  Evolution.  It  takes  no  "Revelations"  to 
give  your  inmost  thoughts  something  of  that  core  of 
Being — your  mind's  eye  pictures  of  HOME,  if  it  was 
a  happy  one!  The  devout  Catholic,  with  his  "Hail, 
Mary,"  has  conscious  touch  of  home,  here  or  here- 
after. 

It  matters  not  what  science  may  tell  of  matter  and 
worlds.  A  single  cell  of  the  lowest  life  has  a  mag- 
netic cell  to  reach  for  its  next  neighbor,  cell  of  an 
opposite  polarity.  This  is  the  way  of  life  here — Love 
and  Home.  The  Sun  of  Righteousness!  We  know 
throughout  all  history  of  divine  influence — a  light  that 
but  seldom  lights  upon  sea  or  shore ;  the  days  not  ac- 


144  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

tinic,  even,  but  known  of  those  who  "see  in  the  dark." 
When  the  human  spirit  reaches  near  the  Highest,  be 
sure  there  will  be  no  selfishness  in  such  a  Presence — 

Come  back,  come  back  across  the  flying  foam, 
We  hear  faint,  far-off  voices  call  us  Home ; 
Come  back,  ye  seem  to  say ;  ye  seek  in  vain : 
We  went,  we  sought,  and  homeward  turned  again. 

Come  back,  come  back! 
And  lighter  far  than  ocean's  flying  foam, 
The  heart's  fond  message  hurries  to  its  HOME! 

Students  of  the  University  of  Michigan  have  begun 
a  new  and  excellent  life  work  in  agriculture,  that  prom- 
ises much  .  There  the  young  folks,  studying  under 
government  supervision,  are  being  paid  for  vocational 
training  for  the  farm.  Their  courses  stipulate  that  a 
certain  period  be  devoted  to  practical  agriculture.  Stu- 
dents are  required  to  pay  for  the  public  lands  on  instal- 
ments, from  a  salary  of  $100  a  month  which  each  re- 
ceives. The  men,  some  of  whom  begin  work  with 
families,  are  to  be  housed  in  large  community  bunga- 
lows, until  separate  houses  will  be  built.  There  will 
be  schoolhouses,  stores,  churches,  recreation  halls  and 
grounds. 

The  culture  secured  in  our  American  schools  it  is 
hoped  will  eliminate  much  of  ignorance,  in  every  phase 
of  life.  We  have  now  too  much  of  childishness  and 
selfishness. 

Aggravating  foreign  troubles  now — and  such  with 
disease  uncultivated  catch  readily  in  our  republic — is 
near  anarchy  now  in  Russia,  from  misunderstanding 
of  their  prophet,  Tolstoy.  He,  with  ideas  of  culture 
such  as  Jesus',  is  conducing  the  boorish  now  in  need  of 
a  government. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  145 

We  all  have  Hope  ,that  means  Heaven,  and  from 
the  present  lookout  one  can  visualize  there  the  robes 
of  the  Very  Reverends,  preachers  robed  with  right- 
eousness, the  reformed  murderer  or  thief,  and  those 
with  robes  cleverly  made  for  the  "getting  there  with 
both  feet/'  who  affirm  they  never  die — but  fly ! 

In  a  period  of  great  unhappiness  in  youth,  Goethe 
penned  some  odes  (halbunsinn)  that,  now,  150  years 
later,  read  very  like  prophecy,  regarding  his  Father- 
land. I  copy  here  and  there  these  lines : 

"In  the  distant  world  is  waiting, 
In  our  arms  thou'lt  find  thy  prized,  and  love, 
too,  when  returning !" 

And  now  I've  seen  her, 

Alas  !  how  changed ! 
With  cold  demeanor 

And  looks  estranged, 
With  ghostly  tread,— 

All  hope  is  fled, 
Yea,  fled  forever! 

The  lightnings  quiver, 
Each  palace  falls; 

The  god-like  halls 
Each  joyous  hour 

Of  spirit  power 
With  Love's  sweet  day 

All  fades  away! 

Let  us  in  a  cunning  wise 

Yon  dull  Christian  priests  surprise! 
With  the  devil  of  their  talk 

We'll  those  very  priests  confound. 
Come  with  prong,  and  come  with  fork, 

As  from  the  smoke  is  freed  the  blaze, 

So  let  our  faith  burn  bright! 
And  if  they  crush  our  olden  ways, 

Who  e'er  can  crush  Thy  Light? 
Wilder  yet  the  sounds  are  growing, 

See  the  arch-fiend  comes  all  glowing. 


146  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

Thou  would'st  rejoice  to  leave 

This  hated  land  behind ! 
Wert  thou  not  chained  to  me 

With  friendship's  flowery  chains. 
Brother,  take  thy  brethren  with  thee, 

With  thee  to  thy  aged  Fatherland. 

Down  from  the  lofty, 
Rocky  wall 

Streams  the  bright  flood, 
Then  spreadeth  gently 
In  cloudy  billows 
O'er  the  smooth  rock, 
And  welcomed  kindly, 
Veiling,  on  roars  it, 
Softly  murmuring, 
Toward  the  abyss. 

Spirit  of  man, 

Thou  art  like  unto  water! 

Fortune  of  man, 

Thou  art  like  unto  wind! 
*    *    *    * 

All  the  remaining  races  so  poor 

Of  life- teeming  Earth, 

In  children  so  rich,  wander  and  feed 

In  vacant  enjoyment, 

And  midst  the  dark  sorrow 

Of  evanescent,  restricted  life — 

Bowed  by  the  Yoke  of  Necessity! 

Father  of  Love — but  one  tone 

That  to  His  ear  may  be  pleasing, 

Oh!  then,  quicken  His  heart! 

Clear  his  cloud-enveloped  eyes; 

Over  the  thousand  fountains, 

Close  by  the  thirsty  one  in  the  desert. 

As  old  as  Plato  or  older  was  a  fact — known,  I  sur- 
mise, through  the  Spirit;  Life  not  requiring  space  and 
time,  and  we  find  in  our  mortal  existence,  spiritually 
it  comes  to  us  without  our  knowledge  here.  By  what 
I  may  term  sympathetic  assortment,  nations  and  fami- 
lies associate  when  "time  is  no  more/'  One  who  gov- 
erns all  things,  so  is  known  not  of  men  exactly,  a  prob- 
lem of  race  as  well  as  nationality  here  with  us. 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  147 

Says  V.  Kellogg  in  Yale  Review,  "The  problem  of 
Americanization  of  the  American  people  involves  a 
consideration  of  race  as  well  as  nationality  —  partly 
biological,  partly  educational.  Anthropology  is  a  sci- 
ence which  has  had  great  development  in  recent  years 
because  of  the  many  finds  of  the  relics  of  prehistoric 
man  that  have  been  made  since  the  beginning  of  this 
century;  so  a  new  and  much  more  precise  knowledge 
of  heredity  has  also  been  gained." 

Melting  pots  have  no  uses  when  we  affirm,  generally 
speaking,  "God  rules/'  Polarity  in  the  character  is  a 
something  to  convince  us  man  cannot  govern ;  we  our- 
selves as  Americans  continue  to  kill  or  cure,  in  our 
physical  times  and  conditions.  Just  as  we  learn  on 
earth, — that  except  for  polarization,  that  even  in 
lake  to  cleanse  us,  as  babes  later  are  cleaned  by  us 
in  the  physical  life, — cannot  remake  the  soul.  Other- 
wise we  could  be  made  as  Adam,  scripturally,  "out  of 
the  dust  of  the  earth,"  that  a  breathing  of  the  "breath 
of  life"  touched. 

The  future  of  poetry  is  immense,  because  in  poetry, 
where  it  is  worthy,  of  its  high  destinies,  our  race,  as 
time  goes  on,  will  find  an  ever  surer  and  surer  stay. 
There  is  not  a  creed  which  is  not  shaken,  not  an  ac- 
credited dogma  which  is  not  shown  to  be  questionable, 
not  a  received  tradition  which  does  not  threaten  to 
dissolve.  Our  religion  has  materialized  itself  in  the 
fact,  in  the  supposed  fact;  it  has  attached  its  emotion 
to  the  fact,  and  now  the  fact  is  failing  it.  But  for 
poetry  the  idea  is  everything;  the  rest  is  a  world  of 
illusion,  of  divine  illusion.  Poetry  attaches  its  emition 


148  PHYSICAL  LIFE 

to  the  idea;  the  idea  is  the  fact.    The  strongest  part  of 
our  religion  today  is  its  unconscious  poetry. 

Let  me  be  permitted  to  quote  these  words  of  my 
own,  as  uttering  the  thought  which  should,  in  my  opin- 
ion, go  with  us  and  govern  us  in  all  our  study  of 
poetry. 

— MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 


CONCLUSION 

I  have  yet  much  manuscript,  but  forbear  to  use  it 
until  such  may  be  needed,  explanatory  to  the  theory 
of  rebirth  and  new  evolutions. 

Slowly  our  old  earth  may  get  the  transforming  in- 
genuity of  man — to  get  away  from  the  "Under  World" 
(after  robbing  it),  reaching  for  abode  nearer  the 
heavens.  Airplanes,  already  very  ingenious,  will,  after 
many  mishaps  to  the  inventors  and  users, — be  used 
skyward;  for,  let  us  consider  Nature  Farther — how 
annually  the  clouds  now  keep  up  the  millions  of  tons 
of  water  in  wet  seasons!  More  room  at  the  top  is 
an  old  saying.  Keep  up  a  lively  courage,  for  you  have 
friends — an  Almighty  Father;  and  Greatest  of  the 
Prophets,  Jesus;  have  your  twins  within  your  soul, 
Conscience  and  Character,  and  that  host  of  the  "Do 
unto  others  as  you  wish  to  be  done  by/' — others  may 
be  tricksters ! 

W.  T. 

A  few  words,  gentle  reader,  and  then  I  quit.  We 
"two  or  three  met  together,"  as  Jesus  enjoined,  have 
had  life  under  discussion,  just  as  Job  of  old  and  his 


AND  HIGHER  LIGHT  149 

friends.  As  at  the  dawn  of  creation,  under  the  tree 
of  life,  the  question  Good  and  Evil  comes  uppermost. 
Let  us  confer,  concern  ourselves  very  little  as  to  a  place 
in  heaven,  but  try  to  determine  influences  growing  out 
of  good  and  evil,  that  affect  us  and  others.  Eliminate 
the  dead  wood  on  the  Tree,  "cast  it  into  the  fire,"  as 
Jesus  advised,  and  act  as  good  husbandmen  for  plant- 
ing— not  in  stony  places.  Let  there  be  care  to  stop 
the  irrigating  wastes  in  our  Garden  of  Eden.  Curb 
laziness  and  languor  in  the  good  work  for  the  world, 
and  promote  culture. 

In  a  word,  let  us  have  Peace  and  Plenty — if  possi- 
ble, in  this  Old  Home  ,earth  ,as  appointed  (thus  far 
on  the  Path  of  Life),  so  we  can  continue  God's  plan  in 
our  Everlasting  World  of  the  Spirit. 

THE  END 


To  the  Reader; 

"Physical  Life  and  Higher  Light"  has  been 
compiled  by  the  author,  Wm.  Taylor,  not  with 
the  idea  of  financial  gain,  but  to  reach  a  class  of 
people  who  have  an  intelligent  appreciation  of 
new  educational  ideas.  The  price,  therefore, 
has  been  put  at  the  lowest  point  consistent  with 
the  actual  cost  of  the  printing,  binding  and 
mailing. 

$1.40  by  money  order  or  cash  will  bring 
this  book  to  you,  postpaid. 

Address: 

California  Printing  Company, 

1134547  Stimson  Bldg., 
Dept.  3  Los  Angeles,  California 


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